The Children's War (109 page)

Alex glanced at Katerina, smiled sheepishly, then turned his attention to Peter. “Well, since the issue has been raised here, now, with everyone obviously in agreement that it’s a good idea—”

“I’m not,” Wanda interjected.

“Almost everyone,” Alex corrected. “What about it? Huh?”

All eyes turned to Peter, awaiting his answer.

Just like that, he thought, without even five minutes alone to consider the ramifications. Just like that, without any warning. Like the way they’d come and get him in his cell—he never knew when, he never knew for what. All those faces staring at him as he stood helpless and alone. All those uniforms standing around, waiting for the entertainment to begin. Using him as if he were not really human, just some sideshow set on the earth to amuse them all. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and though he tried hard to hide his fear, he realized he was trembling.

He looked again to Zosia. She was busy rubbing the back of her neck, her head down. When she finally looked up, she had an absent expression on her face; her tongue probed along the edge of her upper lip as though she were deep in thought. She did not look at him. “I’ll think about it,” he finally said aloud.

“Oh, come on, what’s there to think about?” Alex pressed jovially.

Peter considered a moment, then said in a conversational tone, “Tell me, Alex, have you ever been tortured?”

Alex glanced at the others, realized that the tables had been turned on him and that it was too late to do anything but answer the question. “Er, no,” he replied with reluctant honesty.

“Beaten?” Peter suggested as a precisely pronounced alternative.

“No.”

“Forcibly sodomized maybe?” he asked, drawing out the syllables.

“No, of course not!”

Peter snorted at Alex’s horrified response; he noticed a number of raised eyebrows among the guests—clearly gossip about him had been less widespread than he had guessed. “Interrogated?” he asked with feigned gentleness while he still had the initiative.

“Um, no.”

“Arrested even?” His tone had degenerated into the patient pitch used when asking a backward child a difficult question.

“No, well, er, yes,” Alex answered, relieved he could answer something other than no.

“When?” Konrad asked with surprise. “Certainly you’re not talking about your deportation from England?”

“Well”—Alex cleared his throat—“yes, that was the time I was thinking of. It was traumatic, quite traumatic.”

There were a few grunts of derision from their audience.

“I see.” Peter smiled grimly.

“But it’s not my experience we’re talking about,” Alex said, clearly embarrassed.

“No, it’s mine. And therefore any decision is mine to make—in private and after careful consideration.”

“It’s for the good of us all! You really must do it.” Alex regained his wind, prepared to launch into a long and persuasive speech.

“I said,”
Peter interrupted in a tone that caused even Alex to fall silent, “I’d think about it.”

There was, Alex realized, no point in pushing further, and not a few of his audience looked at each other in surprise when he neglected to continue his assault. They were even more surprised when Ryszard did.

“For reasons which, for some of you, must remain unclear,” Ryszard drawled over the whispers that had followed Peter’s comment, “I know something about the methods of the security services.” The few mutters that had begun immediately dropped to an attentive silence. Peter glared at Ryszard, but did not interrupt.

“There is a method to their madness,” Ryszard asserted. “Most victims are released alive—there is a reason for that. They are meant to convey a message to the community at large, and that is, obviously, don’t do what this person has done, or else this is what will happen to you or someone you love. This is why ordinary objects are often used to inflict pain—so that terror will be provoked by the most innocent situations
after
the victim is returned home.”

“I wasn’t sent back home,” Peter asserted, angered but unsure why. “I wasn’t a ‘message’ for my compatriots!”

“Oh, yes, you were,” Ryszard disagreed. “You were placed among a population of fellow forced laborers, most of whom, I would guess, had not been tortured, and most of whom, I would further guess, ascertained that you had been. Maybe it was a coat hanger or a bottle or some other innocuous item which made you tremble. Maybe it was just certain words. Whatever it was, they would have noticed, and they would have understood the connection, even if you did not.”

Peter felt that somehow Ryszard was implying he was stupid, but before he could respond, Ryszard continued, “As useful and widespread as it is, though, torture has rather negative political implications, and no modern government indulges in it openly. They hide their complicity behind periodic assertions that a few ‘rogue elements’ have gotten out of control, or by labeling their victims as terrorists, criminals, or insane. All these devices help to distance governments
from the procedure, and further to put some distance between the victims and the public’s perception of itself and its own innocence or sanity.”

Peter thought of his own constant irritation at the green triangle he was obliged to wear. He wet his lips as if he were going to say something, but no words emerged.

“Nevertheless,” Ryszard emphasized, “nothing is so successful at suppressing public outcry as the silence of the victims and the perpetrators themselves. This is efficiently achieved in two ways: first by planting in the victim’s mind an absolute distrust of humanity, thus destroying his ability to relate well to anyone or to trust anyone with the sensitive details of his life, making him see enemies and phantoms even among—”

“I am not insane!” Peter hissed.

“I
didn’t say you were,” Ryszard responded coolly. “Second, they make the proceedings utterly humiliating. In general, that is the reason for the sexual violations, for denying the prisoner clothing or simple toilet facilities, for placing bags or buckets on their heads, or attacking their genitalia. There are more efficient methods of inflicting pain and lasting damage, but that is not the goal. The goal is to make the victim a silent witness, to make that person terrifying to all who know him, but at the same time to make him unable to carry any message of what has happened to him to the world at large. To make it all too humiliating to speak about.”

Peter found himself staring at the floor as Ryszard spoke. Could he ever tell anyone about having his stomach grotesquely distended with contaminated water, of being drenched in his own excrement? He looked up to see Ryszard’s eyes boring into his. “As long as you remain silent, you remain their tool,” Ryszard warned, “and if you think that speaking out will damage you, just think of the damage you do to others by remaining silent!”

Peter felt like a coward and at the same time resented Ryszard and the others for making him feel that way. They thought they were asking him to sit on a stage, fully dressed, and talk calmly. But if his words were effective, he would be inviting hundreds, maybe thousands, of strangers to strip him and see him as he had been then: naked, beaten, filthy, and violated. Drooling, scabrous, swollen, and discolored. Obscene and repulsive.

And what if he let them look into his mind? That part of himself that was damaged the most? What if he let them see the “phantoms” that stalked him, the self-doubts that beset him, his inexplicable feelings of guilt? What if he let them know of the overwhelming fear that even now made his heart thunder in his chest? He shuddered at the thought. Even worse, though, what if his words
failed
to convey those humiliating images about himself? Then his efforts would be pointless, and he would be seen as whiny, self-pitying, and weak!

He walked toward Ryszard, the crowd parting before him as he crossed the room. When he was face-to-face with Ryszard, he stopped. “You left out one small detail,” he said so quietly that only the complete silence of the onlookers allowed his words to be heard.

“And what is that?” Ryszard asked.

“The third component of the silence: no one wants to hear about it! It embarrasses the audience, makes them uncomfortable, so they tune it out. ‘It can’t be that bad!’ they’ll say. ‘You’re exaggerating!’ they’ll say. ‘Jeez, can’t you make it a bit less, you know, unpleasant!’ they’ll say,” Peter said with a sneer. He glanced around the room to make sure everyone was listening. “They won’t want to believe such things happen—not to good people, anyway. So, they’ll either decide I am evil or foolish or hopelessly foreign, and deserving of my fate, or they’ll point out I’m still alive, relatively healthy, and I should stop whining and thank God that I’ve been granted my life!”

He took a deep breath. “The only way out of that trap is for them to dehumanize me—make me the perfect sacrificial lamb, suffering in noble silence! Heroic and redeemed! But then I can’t be bitter, can I? I can’t be fallible or human or scared. In fact, I should view the whole thing as an inspiring adventure! I should find Jesus! I should write a
fucking book
about it!”

Ryszard raised his eyebrows at the sudden vehemence of Peter’s reaction, but his expression said that he had expected no less. Peter turned away from Ryszard and his all-knowing attitude. He was one of them. One of those faceless uniforms who watched impassively as others suffered, screaming, weeping, begging God for mercy.

Peter turned to the others in the room, almost pleading with them to understand. “That country is filled with asylum seekers, many of whom have stories worse than my own. The victims of torture walk around like ghosts, no rational person wanting to believe they exist. And if they do speak up, the truth of their words is doubted, their motives are questioned. If the Americans haven’t heard anything yet, it’s because they don’t want to. Would you? Would you listen? Would you do anything?” He scanned the faces. Nobody said anything. “The sad truth is, even if I were to speak, you wouldn’t be able to find anyone who would listen.”

Peter turned and walked out the door, ignoring Alex’s “I’ll handle that part of it!” He strode down the hall to the entrance and left the bunker for the anonymous peace of the cold, snowy night. As he walked slowly through the trees toward the escarpment where he usually sat and looked at the stars, he heard someone running up from behind, panting loudly from the effort of plowing through the snow. It was Zosia. She smiled at him and joined him, and they continued to walk in silence for a few moments.

When the warm feeling of her hand in his had calmed his heart, he asked, “Why didn’t you help me in there?”

“Well, mainly because I think you ought to do it, so since I couldn’t say anything useful to your cause, I said nothing at all. But also because I thought you should be seen to fight your own battles. I knew you could handle it.”

“Why didn’t you at least warn me?” He couldn’t tell her of the terror Alex had provoked, of how it was like another show trial: all those faces waiting to con-
demn him, waiting for him to condemn himself. But certainly she must have had some idea!

“Oh, I’m sorry. If I had known Dad was going to pull that stunt, I certainly would have. He just mentioned it in passing, and I said I thought it would be a good idea, but I told him he should talk to you directly—that it was completely up to you. I assumed it would be in private, so I just advised him to be subtle so he wouldn’t jar old memories, and he said he would be. God, I’d hate to see what he thought unsubtle was!”

“I can’t believe he ambushed me like that.”

“Me neither. But I’m sure he had his reasons.” Zosia wrapped her arm around his waist, and he put his around her shoulders. They felt comfortable together like that, as if they belonged together for all time. They stopped at the escarpment, and clearing away some snow, they sat and looked at the stars, holding each other and enjoying the biting cold of the cloudless night. Eventually Zosia shivered and suggested they should head back. They walked along the trail they had made, the snow muffling all sound save the whisper of their breath. They continued in their warm togetherness, but just before they reached the entrance, Zosia pulled him to a stop. “You know, I was just thinking about my father’s idea and about what Ryszard said. Maybe you should do it.”