2.
Molabayo Detention Center, December 6, 2017.
My parents had certainly been right to have been worried when I told them I was going to Zilawe to work on development. “Meghan,” my Mom had said, “I’ve read bad things about that country. Please don’t go; give college another try-your Dad and I will pay for it.”
Of course I hadn’t listened, just as I hadn’t listened when they’d told me to stay in college instead of dropping out to camp out with Occupy Wall Street in Zucotti Park. And just like then, I was paying a price for my decision.
With only a few semesters of credits towards my degree, there weren’t a lot of great jobs available. It seemed like I’d worked in half the coffee houses in Brooklyn, bouncing from overcrowded apartment to overcrowded apartment, trying to survive in the City on a crappy salary.
Finally, I’d given up and moved back to New Jersey, to the bedroom I’d grown up in, taking lousy retail jobs in the various malls that the Garden State is renowned for. When I saw the ad from Aid International to work helping poor, downtrodden people overseas, I thought, ‘Why the fuck not? See a bit of the world, do some good.’ It sure didn’t seem that Occupy had much to show for their efforts, but maybe this would actually accomplish something.
When I got to Zilawe, I found it was worse than I expected. I had seen poor people back home in Newark and Harlem and elsewhere, but there was no comparison. These Zilaweans were literally starving. Meanwhile that disgusting old gangster, so-called “President” Parambe, lived in a palace, had a gorgeous house in London, a penthouse in Manhattan, a chateau in France, and billions stashed way in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. And anyone who protested this state of affairs soon disappeared into a labor camp or an unmarked grave.
After a few months working in the countryside trying to get clean water to poor farmers, I was just so mad and depressed by the injustice of it all. I was on a brief leave in Molabayo, up late alone drinking wine in the house Aid International kept for the use of staffers passing through the capital. Out of boredom and frustration, I wrote a tweet about how Parambe was stealing food from children.
I had heard that the old dictator was becoming ever more paranoid with advancing age and that the Security Services were particularly on edge lately, what with increased activities by the rebels. Still, I figured they wouldn’t do anything too bad to an American, probably just deport me, which I wouldn’t really have minded by this point. In the end, I decided that the world needed to know what was going on here, the oppression and the corruption, so I hit “Post”.
Early the next morning, while it was still dark, I awoke to loud insistent banging at the door. I was sleeping in the nude because of the heat, but I threw on a shirt, doing up enough of the buttons to cover my breasts, and pulled on a pair of loose cotton trousers.
There on the door step were four khaki-clad Security men. “Are you Meghan Shanahan?” the one with the most stripes on his sleeve asked.
“Yes,” I replied. It seemed pointless to deny it since they obviously knew who I was. “What is this about?”
“You must come with us,” he insisted.
“Can I change into my day clothes? Put on some shoes?”
“She must think we are taking her to breakfast at the Presidential Palace,” the leader said. The rest of them laughed. Then the one in charge grabbed my hair and started pulling me through the door, scraping my upper chest and arm against the jamb.
“Owww,” I yelled. “Stop it! Look, I’m bleeding.”
He pulled even harder on my hair, forcing me to look at him as best I could through the tears that clouded my eyes from pain and fear. “You think this is a joke, Ms. Shanahan?” I shook my head. “I can assure you it is not,” he continued. “We know about your tweet. Insulting our President and trying to overthrow our government is a very serious matter.”
He released my hair. “Now you have a choice. You can walk to our truck like a nice young lady or we can drag you there like a misbehaving child. Which will it be?” he sneered at me. My heart was pounding in my chest.
I took a step towards the tan colored pickup truck that stood in the driveway. The stones protruding from the desiccated dirt dug into my bare soles, but I kept going, for fear of what these men would do if I stopped.
Once I reached the truck, one of the men opened the tailgate and climbed into the cargo bed. He reached down to grab my hand and started pulling me up, while one of the others put his hands on my ass and pushed me over the tailgate, then climbed into the cargo bed with me and his comrade. The leader got into the passenger seat in the cab, while the other Security man got into the driver’s seat and threw the truck in gear. We drove off into the early morning stillness.
The sun was just coming over the horizon as we pulled into the Detention Centre, but that was the last I saw of its brightness for a while. The Security men hustled me into a small windowless room and sat me in a small wooden chair facing a metal desk. They wrapped a rope around my chest and the back of the chair, pulling it tight against my breasts. Then, they placed my hands in my lap and tied another rope around my thighs and the seat of the chair, trapping my hands. Finally, they tied my ankles to the chair leg. They left without saying a word.
I sat for some time, perhaps a few hours, though there was no clock nor did any sunlight penetrate the room, so I can’t be sure. Periodically, I heard screams coming from down the hall. I couldn’t say if they were a man or a woman or even if they were human, since they were wordless, animal cries. I had heard rumors that the Security Services tortured people with electricity and waterboarding to make them confess and give up co-conspirators. Now I knew that those rumors were well founded.
Nevertheless, I didn’t think they would do that to me. After all, our government wouldn’t allow a US citizen to be tortured in a foreign country, would they? Still, I had to sit and listen to whatever poor soul was suffering just down the hall.
Finally, the screams stopped, whether because the victim had given them what they wanted or died or passed out, I do not know. Eventually, the door opened. I turned to see a man enter-he was very dark skinned, with a shaven head. He carried a plain manila file folder and a laptop. Two of the men who had arrested me followed him, standing behind my chair.
The shaven-headed one sat down at the desk without looking at me or addressing me, examining the papers in the folder and clicking away at his laptop. I thought of protesting my arrest, but decided that might be unwise. Finally, he put the folder down and looked up at me. “Ms. Shanahan, I am Tuma. I am with the Security Services. That is all you need to know. Would you like some water?”
I nodded and heard one of the men leave the room. Her returned with a bottle of water and stood in front of me, offering me the bottle, which I couldn’t accept since my hands were tied in my lap “Would you untie my hands, please?” I demanded.
“Ms. Shanahan, you have surely been in Zilawe long enough to know that we are in a severe drought,” Tuma said. “Water is very precious, farmers are starving for lack of it and I hate to see it wasted.” The man holding the bottle dumped it on my head, letting it run down my cheeks soaking my cotton shirt. I managed to thirstily lick a few drops off my chin.
Angry now, I protested, “What is the meaning of this? I’m an American citizen here to help your country. I haven’t done anything. Now let me go!”
Tuma smiled. He typed something into his laptop, got up from the desk, and brought the device over to me, holding it so I could see the screen. “This is your Twitter account, is it not Ms. Shanahan?” It had my name and picture at the top of the page, so there seemed no point to denying it. I nodded.
He scrolled to the bottom, to the tweet from last night about President Parambe. “And did you write this?”
I hesitated for a moment. It was mine, of course, and it was 100% true. If I denied it, those screams from down the hall would probably be mine and I would end up admitting the truth anyway. “Yes,” I replied, nervously.
Tuma grinned. “It is very wise of you to be honest, Ms. Shanahan. The truth always comes out eventually anyway. If you will sign a confession, I will see what I can do to resolve this matter as efficiently as possible.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Tuma wanted to help me. The Zilawean government didn’t want an international black eye. I would sign their confession, they would escort me to the airport and put me on a plane out of the country with a warning not to return. I would be home for Christmas and Zilawe would just be an interesting experience I could impress my friends with.
I pulled on the ropes that held my wrists. “I can’t sign with my hands tied, can I?” Tuma pulled some papers out of the folder as one of the guards bent to loosen the ropes that held my wrists.
