Every Man in This Village Is a Liar_ An Education in War - Megan K. Stack [44]
“I’m sorry,” one of the men said gently. He leaned closer and murmured: “I have already been twice to jail.”
The hotel telephone shrilled at midnight.
“We want to talk to you,” the man ordered in broken English. “Come downstairs now, please.”
“It’s very late,” I said. “I’m just going to bed.”
“Now, please.” And the line went dead.
I stood up and struggled into my clothes, disoriented. I must be in trouble. They’re angry because I’ve been hanging around with Nabil and his family. I pulled on my jeans.
The men waited in the lobby. “Dr. Giuma wants to see you.” This was the official who had issued my visa. They marched me out and drove me wordlessly through the darkened streets. Dark waves tumbled onto the shore and sizzled to flatness on the sands.
Lights blazed in the information ministry. Dr. Giuma was all toothy smiles. He served me a little glass of tea. He wanted to know if I was happy, was there anything I needed? I began to relax, to chat.
Then he got very cold, very fast. It had come to his attention, he said, that I’d been complaining about his staff, saying that they were not sufficiently helpful.
“On the contrary,” I told him. “I’ve been very pleased.” It was true. I wondered if this was a meeting he held out of habit.
“We have reports,” he said.
“I don’t know where you are getting your information,” I said, flushing but trying to speak slowly, clearly. “But it’s wrong. I haven’t complained to anybody. So your information is wrong.” Even to my own ears, I sounded guilty. Guilty of what, I wondered.
“You know, we were not expecting you to come now,” Dr. Giuma pressed on. “We had a program for the journalists. It was before. You were not here. We are trying to do our best for you although we did not expect you now.”
“I know,” I told him. “And really, I am most grateful for your trouble.”
Then, the sugar-crusted bottom of the tea glass, and a sudden standing up, a thank you, a tacit invitation to leave. There was no explanation or apology. No acknowledgment that it was strange, hauling me down here in the middle of the night to make me squirm. They were through with me. We had talked about nothing.
Back within the dry, bright walls of my hotel room, I sat very still and listened to the blood rage through my ears. I was wide awake.
The doctor swept into the lobby clutching a little bouquet of tea roses from his garden. “On behalf of the Libyan-American Friendship Association, welcome to Libya,” he said officiously, dipping into a little bow as he handed over the flowers. He was most delighted to make my acquaintance, and his wife sent her very best regards.
“Do we have time for a cup of coffee?” I asked.
“Of course!” he said grandly. “We have plenty of time.”
The Libyan-American Friendship Association had caught me by surprise. I’d called the doctor because I’d heard the hospitals were falling apart under sanctions, that medicine and sheets were in short supply, that the entire medical infrastructure was on the edge of collapse.
The condition of the hospitals was relevant because of the Bulgarian nurses. Six foreign nurses and two doctors had been languishing in jail, reportedly under torture, for four years already, accused of injecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV-tainted blood. The children were sick; that much was undeniable. But the government’s insistence that it was an Israeli conspiracy, that the hapless