Every Man in This Village Is a Liar_ An Education in War - Megan K. Stack [46]
“What are you doing?” barked the man from the lobby.
“My friend here was just taking me to the airport,” I said.
“Why did you do this? You disappeared from the hotel. We were going to take you to the airport.”
“Oh, well I appreciate that very much! I had no idea.” Big smile.
The doctor, stammering in Arabic, was surrounded by two of the government men. One of the men yanked open the trunk, pulled out my suitcase and, without a word, threw it into the back of the black sedan.
“Get into the car,” the man from the lobby snapped.
“Actually, I need to go to the airport,” I said.
“We will take you there.”
“What about my friend?”
“Don’t worry,” he said coldly.
This sounded ominous. I walked over. Sweat was pouring down his face. “They say they’re taking me to the airport,” I said.
“Yes of course,” he looked at me significantly. “You must go with them.”
“Will you be all right?”
“I’ll be just fine.” He smiled a sickly smile. “It was a great pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure was mine,” I said slowly.
I left him there, in the custody of the government. They could do anything they wanted, sooner or later. The more fuss I kicked up, the worse it would be for him in the end. So I left quietly. They packed me into the backseat and slammed the door behind me with a ring. The air-conditioning was cool on my arms; my face began to dry. I settled into the plush seats, and nobody spoke. They drove fast, plunging through the afternoon, swerving around the other cars. We were driving away from the airport.
“Are we going to the airport?” I tried to keep my voice cool. “It’s getting very late.”
“Wait,” the minder snapped.
“Well, I need to go to the airport!”
“Okay, okay!”
“I can just take a taxi,” I offered.
He laughed nastily, and kept driving.
I gave up and stared out the window. Had they concluded I was a spy, or were they just teaching me another lesson? We wound up back at that same government compound, the one that vaguely reminded me of an army base. “Wait here,” the minder told me, and disappeared.
The minutes dragged by. The car was running out of air. I swung the door open and listened to the heat sing under the trees. I knew I couldn’t leave; the gate had clamped shut behind us. I gave up on my flight. It would take off soon, and the airport was far away. I felt desperate to get out of Libya and away from the pressure of being watched, of being suspicious to everybody, of fretting about getting others into trouble. It had been obvious the moment the black government sedan swung out of the traffic, glinting with power and inevitability: You can’t do anything in a dictatorship. You construct little facades of freedom, but that’s just a child’s game of pretend. The eyes are on you, always, watching and judging and remembering. Sometimes the regime will let you think you are moving around freely. Sometimes the regime will remind you that you will never be free. This was the message: Don’t think you are anybody important. Don’t think we can’t squash you, if we feel like it. You are on our turf now. This was not a personalized message; it was just their way of being, and it came naturally to them.
They gave the message plenty of time to sink in. They let me stew in trepidation for twenty minutes.
And then the Libyans surprised me, one last time. They came to fetch me. They walked me inside. There I found my main minder, the woman, along with Dr. Giuma. My minder beamed at me. You gave us quite a scare there. We didn’t know where you had gone. We just didn’t want you to leave without a proper good-bye, they said with eerie smiles. Then the exclamation marks started popping. Thank you for coming to the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahariya! We have enjoyed working with you!
“I’m sorry, I thought …” I trailed off. “You see, I’m very late. I’m worried I’ll miss