23

Suz

 

 

Somewhere deep in Refugio Yati Tupi, Paraguay

 

 

The sound of haunting music filled the tent. Beautiful, eerie chanting, backed with awakening fauna. It must be very early. Suz went over to the tent opening and standing to the side so that she could not be seen, she looked out. A large tarp was spread on the ground, and men approached with prayer rugs in their hands, slipping off their sandals, and moving into neat rows, six across and six deep. One stood in front. They were dressed in olive drab harem pants and matching tunics, shemagh cloths covered their heads, they were thinly bearded and seemed, like the guide who brought her here, to be very young.

Standing at the edges of their prayer rugs, they chanted together, “Alla o akbar,” their hands up in front of them. They crossed one arm over the other, everyone moving in a choreographed spiritual dance. The men stood silently, though they moved their lips reciting their prayers beneath a periwinkle sky.

Suz shifted silently to the other side of the slit. From this angle she could see that there was another tent beside hers and then the fencing. Obviously, this place was secret. Obviously, these men were Muslim – Suz saw no women except herself, no children except the sleeping Levinski boys. She could see straw dummies strung up on ropes draped in clear tarps. On the far side of the camp, away from the line of tents, firing range bullseyes were attached to the fencing. There was no berm behind them to catch the stray bullets, but then again, out here, the stray bullets would sail for a time and then hit one of the massive trees. Suz wondered about that for a time. Guns made a great deal of noise. They must be very far into the forest, very far from people for no one to hear and investigate. She wondered if the trees muffled sound or augmented it. The forest was very loud. All the time loud, except when the rain came down in torrents. And that had its own loudness.

Suz needed to pee. She scanned what little she could see, and she didn’t see anything that looked like a latrine. She wasn’t sure she was brave enough to leave the tent and move into the open and disrupt the men at prayer. They were now prostrate on their mats.

She went to the back of the tent where she had the boys kneel the night before. She untied a knot, lifted the corner and slipped outside, jumping to the ground. She moved as close as she dared to the fencing, dropped her BDUs to her ankles, and squatted down, wiping with a Kleenex. She was glad that here the land slid downhill away from their tent. She stood and looked at the fencing. If she were to escape with the boys. She’d have to get past this fencing.

She looked up. The concertina wire was daunting. Beyond daunting, undoable. She slunk back to the tent and crawled back through the hole. She went and checked the boys. They both seemed to be in the deep sleep that came from pure exhaustion. She had broken a Tylenol in half and used her finger to stick the pill down each boys’ throats since she had no liquid or chewables in her medicine cabinet. Their fevers seemed to be down. She needed to ask the boys what the doctor said about their sister.

The men were still at prayer. Suz undid a tie at the back of their tent at eye level so she could stick her face through and consider the fence. Tall. Even if she could climb it and could come up with a strategy for how to get over it, she knew that she couldn’t get the boys out that way. Getting her class down the rope ladder had been hard enough for the kids to do, and running away. . .she had learned lessons about that too. Ari and Caleb were small and slight for their age. Not clumsy, but not athletically gifted either. And sick.

A man was outside of her tent. “Molloy. Here,” he commanded in barely-there English. Suz opened the tent flap and stepped out. His eyebrows raised to his hairline his eyes wide in shock, quickly replaced by fury, he slapped her across the face, knocking her off the one step. She flailed and was able to right herself before she fell in the mud. He reached over and grabbed her shoulders, Suz stood frozen not knowing what right-action to take. “No,” he spat and gestured up and down her body. Then lifted her by the elbows and threw her toward the tent opening.

Suz scrambled inside, thoroughly shaken. She looked down at what she was wearing. BDUs, combat boots, a t-shirt. Standing two feet back from the tent slit she focused on the men, moving away, their prayer rugs rolled up under their arms. They were covered in drab olive. She thought back to St. Basil’s and her student Layla Kalb, she wore western-style clothes, but her mother wore clothing that covered all of her body except for her hands. Her head was wrapped in a flowing hijab. Suz realized that her clothing wasn’t sufficiently modest. She went back to the pack and found a shemagh that Jack wore when he was in the desert. It was basically a huge bandana. That would help. She draped it over her head. She needed something for her arms and elbows. Moving things around, Suz found out a pair of silk long johns rolled tightly and fastened with hair bands. She tugged the bands off.

“Molloy. Here,” the guy yelled. His impatience was palpable.

Suz’s cheek stung from where he hit her. Suz cast her eyes around for a quick cover-up and pulled the poncho from over the boys and yanked it on. Only her face showed as she exited the tent again. The guy scowled at her then walked away. She thought maybe she should go with him. Suz moved to walk beside him, he looked down at her. “No.” He pushed her back behind him on his left. He glowered. She was to follow behind as a subservient, to him women weren’t equal and shouldn’t walk side by side with a man. Suz took a deep breath in and tried to think about how she had seen Middle Eastern women present themselves, so she could pattern her behavior.

Suz remembered an evening on her back deck around the fire pit. And Striker was telling them a story about Kabul. He had noticed that even though the people had been freed of the Taliban culture, the women still walked the requisite five steps behind; and to his eye, it looked like even farther back than before. He asked a local woman why this was. She bowed her head to hide her grin and said, “Landmines.”

The guy stopped moving. She stopped moving. Suz was standing before the man she assumed to be the commander of the camp. “Molloy,” he said, pointing at her. He patted his chest, “Salib.”

Suz couldn’t tell if that was a first name or a last name, she stepped forward. “Salib,” she repeated.

“Boys good?”

“No. Boys not good,” she shook her head for emphasis.

He scowled.

“The boys need a doctor. Medicine.” Suz tried for the simplest phrases.

He scowled again. He pointed. “You. Medicine.” Then he pointed to his back, pretended that his hands looped through straps, leaned over and took a few paces. He raised his eyebrows as if to ask if she understood.

Before she could answer, her eye caught on an enormous snake that was coiled into the concertina wire on the fence behind his head. Her eyes stretched wide, she had never seen such an enormous snake outside of a pet shop vivarium. Salib followed her gaze. He pointed to other points along the wall that also had snakes, then flicked his finger. “Word?”

“Snake,” Suz said. “Snake,” she repeated drawing the word out.

“No snake.” Then he moved his finger around to point at the enclosed area. “No animal. Fence.”

Suz looked at the ground. This guy was nuts. This was after all a chain link fence. Perhaps it kept out bigger animals, wild boars and the like, and maybe even gigantic boa constrictors like the three she could see dangling and decaying in the concertina wire, but there were plenty of animals and snakes that could slide through the holes.

“You, girl.” Salib said.

Suz didn’t know what to say to that.

“One girl,” he said, holding up a single finger.

This time Suz understood. One girl. That was going to create problems – well, it had on occasion for Strike Force when they were travelling with a female soldier who would do the security checks on Muslim women and talk with them away from the men. Men were not allowed to address another man’s wife. And they certainly weren’t allowed to pat a woman down. What would this mean for her? Suz waited patiently.

He pointed to the latrine that she could see at the far left hand corner and then wagged his finger at her.

Suz made a face that she hoped said, “well what am I supposed to do?”

His eye scanned over the area. If Suz was guessing, she’d say it was a little bigger than half a football field with the housing along one side of the fencing and various training areas throughout – obstacle courses and strength training areas. She wondered how they had cleared such a big swath of land. From the amount of rust on the metal, she’d say this place had been around for a good long while. But then again, with the amount of moisture in the air, it was hard to tell. The wooden planks that created the steps up into the various tent slabs seemed worn down and cupped. She’d guess it had been here well over a decade. Nothing was new or in great shape.

They had been standing here quite a while. Salib stroked his beard, and Suz could tell he was at a total loss for how to handle the situation. Suz wondered if she should help him out with a solution, or if that would be considered dishonoring. He was staring at the padlock on the front gate. He shook his head.

Looking at her feet, Suz said, “If I may,” in what she considered a subservient voice. She felt his focus shift back on her, and she raised her eyes. “Men. Pray. 5 times each day.” She held up five fingers, then repeated the crossed arms and bows that she saw this morning. She raised her eyebrows.

“Yes,” he said with a tilt of his head.

“You pray; I go wash.” Suz pointed at what she thought was a shower tent on the other side of the main gate. Then she pointed at the latrines stuck in the corner. “You pray. I go.”

Relief flashed across Salib’s face. “Yes, we pray. You go.” He pointed as she had done. “Yes.” He waved his hand at her. “Come.” He moved away.

Suz followed five paces behind. She was in their world here. It would only help her if she tried to assimilate. They might trust her more. Watch her less. Hit her less.

They moved toward the corner of the camp that was on the other side of the main gate, where the showers and latrine were situated. He opened the tent flap on the longest/largest of the camp tents. It sat in a second line in front of the showers. The men were eating their breakfasts. He yelled a command into the tent. They responded in unison. He turned and yelled toward the showers and the latrine. No response came from either. Salib nodded. “Come.”

He must have been making sure the way was clear. He showed her a large reservoir that contained water. Above it, a large tarp had been strung. Like a funnel, it would route the rain waters down into the opening at the top of the tank. A stack of buckets sat on a chair to keep them from the mud beneath. Salib picked up a bucket and demonstrated how to fill one with water. He dramatically shut the faucet, then checked it, and shut it some more. “Important,” he said and raised his brows.

“Yes.” Suz nodded, making sure the spigot wasn’t dripping when this was the camp’s water source was incredibly important. She tried to convey that message with her eyes.

In the shower tent, one reached up and emptied the bucket into a contraption that then poured the water over you slowly. Suz looked up. Gravity fed, this device was high up off the ground. Suz reached up to see if she could make it work. She was about six inches too short. Salib screwed his lips to the side in thought.

There were five stations on either side of the tent. At each one, a bar of soap had a hole through it and was tied by a piece of rope to a hook. Salib hung up the bucket on the hook and demonstrated washing hands and face. She nodded. She could make it work. No towels. No mirrors. No shampoo.

As the water ran from the gravity device, it poured between the planks to the ground underneath. That caught Suz’s eye. She wondered if thirty-seven men showered each day. And didn’t they wash before they prayed? That was a lot of wash water. It had to go somewhere.

Salib motioned to her and exited the tent. He walked to the latrine. Here, he called again. Again no one responded. It was interesting that it didn’t smell badly. One side of the tent was lined with a long bench; holes were cut into it. It was close to the ground which would necessitate squatting like she had earlier. Behind each hole was a plastic grocery bag. Each contained a roll of toilet paper.

He pulled out a roll and looked it over carefully. Then he made his hands into a spider and raised his brow.

Spiders in the toilet paper, awesome. Suz’s face must have shown she got it because Salib nodded as he put the toilet paper away.

Next, Salib pointed to a plastic bin in the corner. He unscrewed and lifted the top to reveal a bag of garden lime. There was a scoop hanging on a hook alongside.

He pointed again and caught her eye so she knew what he was saying was significant. “This,” he said, holding his hand up like he was cupping some up. He held his other hand up in the same way. “Water,” he labelled the other hand. He brought his hands together and then made them explode back from each other. He shook his hands and grimaced in pain. He raised his eyebrows. Did she understand?

Suz repeated the gesture then said, “No water.” She lowered her eyes so as not to seem immodest. She thought, lime is a dangerous alkaline. She knew that from her gardening. Water and lime might just be something she could use along the way. Could she get thirty-seven males subdued like that? Suz let the thought go as quickly as it bubbled up. There was nothing she could do to subdue thirty-seven armed men.

Salib scooped up the white powder with the plastic dipper and dumped it in the hole. Smell control.

He pointed at her, then the latrine. He pointed at himself and the door, then crossed his arms over his chest miming that he would stand guard.

“Uhm, okay, thank you,” Suz said.

Salib went out.

Suz did her thing, fighting with the poncho the whole time. She wiggled her fingers in the bucket of wash water, thinking that was darned unsanitary, and went to the door. The latrine and the shower looked like the only tents with doors.

When she went out, Salib walked her to the mess tent. He handed her a plate and held up three fingers. She held metal dish out to the server, who put three hard boiled eggs on her plate, one each for her and the boys. She looked around. That was all that anyone had. No wonder these guys were so thin. And angry. Low blood glucose would do that to the kindest of people. None of these men struck her as particularly kind to begin with. She hoped the other meals were more substantial. She pulled the plate under her poncho. The rains were falling again, though not as aggressively as last night. She followed the commander back to her tent, keeping a discreet five paces behind.