From The Memoirs Of A Non-Enemy Combatant Part 3

Because, because, because.

Because Ahmed Qures.h.i.+, aka Punjab Ami, the man who I naively took into my confidence as a fabric salesman, was arrested for selling bomb-making materials days before I was brought here to No Man's Land. My interrogator has revealed that Ahmed is being indicted for conspiring to acts of terror. "He will be convicted, and quickly," he said, during our reservation earlier today. (That's what they call our sessions together. Reservations. I am visited by a commanding officer, the CO, a day in advance, and told that I have a reservation at such and such hour the following day. Being interrogated here is like trying to dine at Babbo.) Yes, regarding Ahmed, there were certain degrees of doubt in my mind. Undoubtedly, yes. But as I sit here in my cell, filling in the blanks of the past few years, more blanks seem to crop up. One of the problems I'm having with the construction of this true confession is the remembrance of actual thoughts at the moment of their occurrence. It is impossible to remember exactly what I was thinking when I was thinking it. What was the exact thought that crossed my mind when I decided to leave my apartment and hop down the dilapidated staircase to meet with Ahmed on the matter of two suits? I wish I could just bite into a macaroon2 like Flaubert,3 and poof, it would all come flooding back to me like some irresistible dream. But I can't. This confession is composed of thought thoughts-those things we think we thought at the time we thought them. They are re-creations, composites of ideas we have reasoned and not the actual thoughts themselves. Because to remember an actual thought at the exact time it occurred in the brain would be utterly inconceivable. That is, unless I had that magical French cookie, but real life doesn't happen like it does in the books. In my world they shackle you to the ground and pump death metal into your ears till you recall being in your mother's womb, quite vividly, and that it was Dr. al-Zawahiri who did the C-section.

My interrogator understands all of this. He believes that for me to get at the true truth-the stuff of a surefire confession-I must relive it again and again, play it over and over like a video in my head, and then expel it like a demon once I arrive at the closest representation. That's why he's made sure I have pen and paper with me at all times in my cell. Who knows when a moment of clarity will strike me?

I find it strange that my interrogator is so sympathetic toward my situation. Why does he treat me so? Maybe it is because he is part of a defeated minority himself. (He's a Greek, my special agent. Goes by the name of Spyro.)4 "Can I be honest?" said my Greek today. "I think you know more than you think you know."

He's a large man, my interrogator, with a taste for expensive suits. He obviously knows a thing or two about men's wear, so I must remember to be as specific as possible when I recount my forays into men's fas.h.i.+on with Ahmed Qures.h.i.+. My Greek's hairline has mainly disappeared, and the few curly black strands he has left up front mold together into a little patch resembling the Italian boot. Coincidentally, there's also a sunspot on his scalp right where Malta floats in the Mediterranean. He continued: "There are some things lodged so deep in our minds that we can't recognize them. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Come again?" I said.

"You know Dostoyevsky?"

"I've never met him," I said.

"You wouldn't have. He's dead," said Spyro.

This made me feel rather ignorant. Of course I had heard of Dostoyevsky. Notes from Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, and the one about the idiot whose t.i.tle escapes me.5 "You two have a lot in common," said Spyro. "He was sent to prison too."

"Lucky for him."

My interrogator is a real Russophile and will go on and on about Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, as though these men were the greatest of all thinkers. He's even mentioned his admiration for the music of Chai Kaufsky.6 I find it strange that an American investigator (of Greek heritage, no less) is so taken with all things Russian. But I'll admit that I too am an admirer of some of Russia's exports, particularly Alexandre Plokhov.7 His militant, s.e.xy outfits were quite an influence on my designs, as well as on my own personal style. I remember his store on Greene Street, with those thin little gothic sales boys and their angular haircuts.

"You know what Dostoyevsky once said?" he continued. "He said that there are things in every man's memory that he's afraid to divulge, even to himself. And he said it might even be the case that the more decent the man, the more substantial the acc.u.mulation of these memories." My interrogator looked down at his handmade shoes. Again I spotted the patch of hair on his broad forehead that formed the Italian boot. "When I was a kid," he said, "I threw a rock at a man's house just to do it."

A confession. "In the Greek isles?" I asked.

"In Perth Amboy, New Jersey," he said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter where. I broke a window. I didn't mean to. My brother was with me. The thing was to hit the side of the man's house. We knew him as our neighbor. I had nothing against him. It wasn't even about him. It was about throwing a rock at a house just because. When it was done, the man came over and told my father. He said he saw me do it. He confronted me in front of my father. Of course, I denied it. I lied. I had to. And then I lied to my father. I was too embarra.s.sed, because even I didn't know why I had done it. I couldn't explain my actions. I threw the rock at the man's house because it was there. Sometimes there are no reasons."

My interrogator removed a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his forehead. The room was air-conditioned, but his excess weight caused him to sweat a great deal.

"Forgive me," he said. "I started this story backward. Memory sometimes works in reverse, don't you think?"

I didn't answer.

"Anyway, it was last Christmas when my brother reminded me of this occasion, when I had thrown the rock at the neighbor's house. He said, 'Don't you remember when you threw that rock?' I said, 'What rock?' I didn't know what he was talking about. I honestly couldn't remember. He told me the story again, as he knew it. And again, I had no memory. I didn't think my own brother was making it up, but I was convinced he was thinking of one of his friends from when we were kids. I dismissed the story without offending him, but for some reason it just wouldn't leave my mind. And then, sometime after New Year's, it occurred to me. I remembered. The rock in my hand. The throw across the road. The shatter of the windowpane. My brother laughing. I recall the particular time of day. My father's face when I swore to him I didn't do it. I forget where I was when I remembered all this-I could have been at the office, or on a.s.signment somewhere-but suddenly my face went flush with embarra.s.sment." Spyro stood up to take off his jacket. Then he sat back down, unb.u.t.toned his sleeves, and rolled them up. He had a long scar running down the length of his left forearm. "You see, our tendency to make ourselves look better in disagreeable circ.u.mstances can be overwhelming. It can make us forget. What I'm most interested in is if there's anything you've forgotten."

And this is where we left off for the day. I was tasked to go back to my cell to remember all that I may have forgotten. Win wondered how it went with my Greek. "Fine," I told him. It seems that Spyro's intent is to inspire my confession. In a way, he wants the same thing I do. For all of this to be finished as soon as possible. For my confession to be submitted as evidence and for my tribunal to be underway.

And yet oblivion, not active remembrance, has become my sole means of survival after three weeks in No Man's Land. Not a day goes by where I don't try to forget where I am. It is not the guards who make this difficult but the other prisoners. Five times a day they pray. As soon as the sun rises, imagine! During prayer time I'll often sit up in bed, shut my eyes, and transport myself back to my former life. A fall fas.h.i.+on week in New York City. The white tents laid out across the lawn of Bryant Park. I venture in through the canvas flaps of the tent, past the ice sculptures of female torsos-nipples melting over avocado rolls, translucent v.a.g.i.n.as dripping into mounds of pickled ginger. I navigate through the labyrinth of runways and the foray of flash photography, escaping backstage through an inviting satin curtain. Around my neck, a VIP pa.s.s: DESIGNER. Backstage is a different kind of frenzy, the workers scrambling to put on a show. I watch fifteen stylists do the hair and makeup of models too plentiful to count. Pulling, clipping, crimping, blowing, flattening, spraying. I summon up each model's face from my past. Olya and Dasha, Irina, Katrina, Marijka, Kasha, Masha-their white, cherubic young skin contrasted by such stark Eastern European bone structure. I inhale the aerosol of hairspray and am suddenly lifted off the ground, floating above the circus of backstage fas.h.i.+on until I hit the pillowlike ceiling of canvas above. I hold my breath, floating over a maddening sea of bare a.s.ses and thongs and hair, and look! There's Catherine Malandrino! Bonsoir, Catherine! Once I exhale, I free-fall and am deposited safely into a pile of Miu Miu handbags.

Open my eyes, and I'm still on my thin rubber mat.

Unlike one of Spyro's repressed memories, I can't just will away this cell, can I? And if I ever do get out of here, if I ever get my thoughts together in one plausible row, I doubt that I will ever be able to forget the memory of this place. The sounds alone will rattle in my mind forever. There is the chime of the razor wire outside. Dogs. Barking dogs coming from the other camps. Rats scurrying underneath our cells. Men are taken for reservations in the middle of the night, and so there are the sounds of their shackles, chains sc.r.a.ping along the metal floor. This of course wakes everyone on the cell block. We are kept between sleeping and waking. We are kept tired. There are the sounds of farts and belches from the other prisoners. Wailing, crying, yawning, grunting, every variation that can come from a human being. The night guards talk and pace the deck. A few times I have heard distant explosions. I thought we were under attack. Cunningham, my night guard, told me that the explosions were land mines left over from a forgotten war. They were being set off by natives of the island trying to flee for the confines of No Man's Land.

Imagine, people blown to bits trying to get in! Can such an act of brutality still be called irony?

Why am I in No Man's Land?

I've asked my interrogator.

The question still lingers in the air like the stench of a rat that has gone and died under my cell.

My fear is that we'll all get used to the stink.

1. Now former U.S. defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know...."

Defense Department briefing, February 12, 2002.

2. Madeleine.

3. Proust.

4. Special Agent Spyros Papandakkas of the FBI, lead investigator on the Hernandez case.

5. The Idiot (1868).

6. Properly spelled Tchaikovsky.

7. Founder of the men's label Cloak.

Modus Operandi.

Because I am guarded 24/7, I hardly ever interact with the other prisoners. Sure, they surround me on the prison block, but Win or Cunningham will prevent them from speaking to me. "Don't talk to him," Cunningham has yelled at my neighbor, who has tried to whisper things into my cell. Anyhow, the man doesn't speak any English. And even if we could understand each other, what would I say to him? Unlike you, I am innocent.

Even during rec hour I am kept apart from the other captives. Once a week we are let out of our cells and taken to the prison yard. It is called rec hour by the guards even though it only lasts fifteen minutes. The remaining forty-five are spent in transport to and from the prison yard. I am suited up with chains, my hands and feet, then moved outside to yet another cage of my own, while the others are piled together in communal chicken-wire confinement. During rec, Win, my day guard, is relieved from duty, and I am escorted by a different MP. Today, a woman.

The fencing overhead is covered with blue tarp. Rays of sun break through its little holes. It is mostly sunny in No Man's Land. We have not had a drop of rain since I've been here. And yet the air is disgustingly humid. Rarely a sea breeze.

Just beyond the prison yard is a dirt expanse. At one end is a soccer goal with no net. Off on the sidelines a stationary bicycle covered in dust. A deflated ball midfield. We're not allowed out of our cages, so the field is only there in plain view as a reminder of what we can't have.

It is clear by the way they look at me through my cage that the other prisoners have had some trouble adapting to my presence. They think I'm a plant, a mole, sent here to spy on them. And I don't even speak any Arabic. How could I possibly spy on them without knowing a word they are saying?

It all comes down to motive, I am told.

Motive is something my Greek and I discuss quite often, in fact. What was my main motive in getting involved with Ahmed? It is yet another question that lingers throughout our sessions, and one that haunts this true confession. I was a designer of women's wear, so why on earth did I decide to make two custom men's suits for a stranger? What was my motive?

They often say it turns the world round, and that in America it can be made hand over fist. I did it for the money! I was swayed by the necessity to pay my way, which quite honestly I had not been doing up until that point. Even though I was regularly booking jobs as a stylist, I was still living off the fat of my homeland-Momma and Dada; my two parents back home were sending me a monthly allowance of one thousand dollars. And I don't need to tell you that in 2002 this amount didn't go very far, considering the cost-of-living expenses in New York City. One needed to pay rent, eat, buy new clothes every season to keep up with ephemeral fas.h.i.+ons, go clubbing, pay cover charges, tip, buy drugs for the after parties. I know this all sounds soph.o.m.oric, but such is the fas.h.i.+on industry. To make the necessary contacts and to develop an insider's network, a large amount of time and money needs to be devoted to nightlife. You need to put in the face time. And face time comes at a cost.

Let me here dispel the stigma of the sc.r.a.ppy dark illegal: the small man-child who waits in the shadows undetected while you finish your entree. We do not all come to America with the sole intention of taking all the American jobs at a lesser hourly rate. That is a bias, a slander, a belittlement, and gratuitous! Like the fullest-blooded American, I knew that the key to my success was capital, and making Ahmed's suits for twenty-five hundred dollars would be profit, pure and simple.

Moreover, the earliest seeds of my pa.s.sion for clothes lay in the business of suits. As a child I spent each summer working for my t.i.to Rono in Cebu. He was a tailor by trade. A family man. He had a wife and two adopted children from the provinces. He was also a closet cross-dresser. Once when he bent over I saw that underneath his trousers he had on a pair of women's panties. I immediately learned that my uncle was a little special, that he was incognito and hiding something from all of us. (By no means does wearing women's panties make one a h.o.m.os.e.xual. Yet I made the only judgment I could at that age-the same judgment my fellow cla.s.smates made upon me in the schoolyard.) Lying on a steel desk in front of a large industrial fan, I watched my uncle work. Each day I held an ashtray for clients who stood still in front of a three-part mirror while t.i.to Rono wielded his measuring tape, the one he always wore around his neck like a doctor with stethoscope. If I was to look over while my uncle was taking an inseam, I could expect to catch sight of his pastel underpants stretching past the point of no return-the s.p.a.ce between the femur and the lower back where American college girls often get tramp stamps. Even his clients espied his little satin secret. Some of the men pretended it wasn't there, some looked to me for guidance, some smiled and just continued smoking their cigarettes, occasionally burning me with the ash they flicked in my direction. Yet all of them returned time and again, so loyal, so admiring of my uncle's way with suits.

So what was there for me to like? Not much. t.i.to Rono's shop was cramped and smoky. Rolls of fabric were piled into skewed towers, each one threatening to topple over like a heated game of Jenga. Even then I thought suits lacked the l.u.s.ter and pulse of the dress, the medium I would devote my life to.

I did understand, however, that my uncle was very well respected. The fact that he was someone at a time when I was no one. And that we were related, of all things, and that people would recognize me, the tailor's nephew, as I made my rounds about the city. All because of my t.i.to Rono, who wore women's panties. Here was someone, I thought. And I understood fas.h.i.+on as its cause.

Among some two hundred names in my uncle's Rolodex were several politicians, once high up in the Marcos administration, as well as a few film actors I recognized. They were the upper echelon of Filipino surnames: Rosaleses, Aquinos, Cuarons, even actual Marcoses, most likely relatives of the exiled ex-president.

These were the high times, the years when my uncle's shop thrived. Nearly a decade and a half later, as Ahmed stood before me with an offer I couldn't refuse, I felt those high times return to me.

I admit that on the evening of my encounter with Ahmed, after he left my room, I had my doubts. But any doubts about his character were overwhelmed by an awareness that I was about to make some good money. I suppose I was immature in matters of money. Sure, I had sold a few dresses here and there to boutiques back home, but I hadn't really turned a profit. My financial savvy was stunted. And for this I blame my parents. They spoiled me rotten as a child and as a twenty-five-year-old man. So however unlikely a true deal with Ahmed seemed, however much of a pathological liar he was, I couldn't discount the matter of twenty-five hundred dollars, the amount I was being offered to tailor the two suits. I kept thinking about the sum total, depositing the amount into my account and then withdrawing it in five-hundred-dollar increments day by day until I spent it all. It seemed like enough money to last me forever, even though it would last me only four days.1 This was the American dream thrown at me, without asking.

I spent that entire night dreaming of ATMs scattered around Manhattan, their screens blinking at me: Would you like a receipt for this transaction? Or, would you like to make a balance inquiry? Long white scrolls of paper fluttered out of the machines and into the night air to form a light drizzle of confetti. Meanwhile, I skipped along Seventh Avenue, trying to catch the flimsy scrolls out of the sky while singing a show-tune rendition of the Wu-Tang Clan's "C.R.E.A.M." ("Cash Rules Everything Around Me /

C.R.E.A.M. / Get the money / Dollar dollar bill y'all"). On one of these receipts I saw that printed very lightly in indigo ink was my birth name (Boyet Ruben Hernandez; I was named after.

my father, Dr. Boyet Hernandez Sr., Ear, Nose, and Throat), my account number, and an available balance of $2,500, the exact sum Ahmed had offered to pay me. The ledger balance, however, was much more extravagant: $250,000 or $2,500,000 or more. It was hard to make out the exact figures in this lucrative dreamland; all the zeros ran down the length of the receipt in an infinite trail.

I swear to you, I had no preconceived intentions besides making the dough to infiltrate the New York fas.h.i.+on scene.

I considered Ahmed's offer for all of one night, then did exactly as he commanded. The next morning I was headed down one flight of stairs to his apartment, neither in excited two-at-a-time leaps nor in slow, doubtful intervals. I moved at an average tempo, calm and collected. I was approaching this new business deal like a levelheaded professional, weighing in my mind both the pros and cons: on the one hand, my neighbor-a pathological liar (but not an arms dealer, I a.s.sure you!)-on the other hand, cash, cold and hard. These were the known knowns.

Now, it would be impossible to pinpoint my exact thought thought at the precise moment I arrived at Ahmed's that morning. But I do remember this, a most telling action: My hand froze, halted in the air, before I knocked on the man's door. There you have it-an outward sign of hesitation. Actions, or in this case inaction, can sometimes speak volumes, as I've told my interrogator.

And how could I have turned away? To abandon my course at this stage would have been cowardly. I am many things to many people, as you will soon learn, but one thing I am not is a coward. This man was my neighbor, after all. The least I could do was conduct the fitting. Imagine the embarra.s.sment I would suffer by not showing up and having to see him around the building after. He lived on the first floor. I'd have to pa.s.s his apartment twice daily at the absolute minimum.

This was opportunity, as they say, and so...I knocked.

"I was about to start taking bets with Yuksel on how long you were going to stand out in the hall," Ahmed said. "I was watching you through the peephole."

Ahmed stood in the doorway in what looked like the same dishdasha he had worn the night before. The three b.u.t.tons at his neckline were undone, revealing a nest of white chest hair in the shape of a large diamond.

I actually admired the gown's free-flowing elegance. It was airy and had a lot of movement. It somehow covered up the fact that underneath was a hairy, stinking man. This was fas.h.i.+on's power, after all. To disguise our most hideous weaknesses. I took a mental note of the way the dishdasha draped over his shoulders and belly and how, even though it was white, it was surprisingly slimming.

"Come in, Boy, please. Make yourself comfortably at home."

I entered the foyer. Ahmed wrapped his free arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a friendly cuddle. His body odor was rancid.

"Are you a betting man, Boy?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Betting. Are you a betting man?"

"I suppose not," I said.

"How about horses? Do you like horses?"

"I like horses, yes."

"What am I saying? Everybody likes horses. I can get us an owner's box in Saratoga. You don't believe me?"

"No. I didn't say that."

"If I wanted to I could make a phone call and we'd be in Saratoga instantly, betting on all the thoroughbred beauties. Ever see those brunettes in their big f.u.c.king hats?" He spread out his arms to demonstrate the width. "Like this."

"We're talking about the horses?"

"Ha! Yuksel, you see what I was telling you about this guy? Yuksel. Yuksel!"

I heard someone gag and hack and spit in the far room. Then I heard a stream of urine and deduced that Yuksel was a man. The pee came from a considerable height.

The apartment itself was a horrific mess but sizable enough to house a small sweatshop. The four original first-floor units had been gutted to form one giant temple of disorder. Only a dilapidated wall remained as a division between two main rooms. The foremost had several large wooden crates marked FRAGILE. Now, I won't simply play the victim of my own tale. Here was a man who I knew had been concealing something about his origins. Much more than that, he was a Muslim in the year 2002. I tried my d.a.m.nedest not to give in to stereotypes, but with respect to the truth-for this is a confession-I was not at ease in this man's home. I won't go so far as to make accusations, but I did curiously inquire as to the contents of those "fragile" crates, and the sacks of earth that lined the walls in between small piles of sheetrock and copper. "Cedar," he said of the sacks throughout the apartment. And in truth, yes, I picked up on their woodsy scent. It overtook Ahmed's rancid body odor. As for the crates, I was told they were packed with art. Paintings and sculptures by Pakistani artists. "I can move anything within reason out of Pakistan," he said, which confirmed my suspicion that he was Pakistani.

A carpet of bubble wrap with all of the bubbles decompressed led us into the far room, the living quarters.

"Pardon our appearance," Ahmed said. "We're renovating."

The centerpiece was a grand piano surrounded by a few upturned milk crates. In the back, next to the small kitchen area, was a bathroom visible through hollowed-out walls. I could see Yuksel in front of the toilet with his back turned, shaking off. He reminded me of a snake in a cage, a great boa. "Hee," he seethed as he looked at me over his shoulder. He was smiling. Ahmed said something to him in Arabic, but Yuksel didn't respond. Once he flushed and came out of the bathroom, revealing himself to me in proper daylight, I saw that the little devil was still smiling. A birth defect, I would later learn-a permanent smile that made him appear as if there were some joke going around. It made one feel very self-conscious, though in truth, he was a shy man, and moved past me quickly into the front room with his head down, concealing that demonic grin.

"Don't mind Yuksel. He'll be working in there while we have our breakfast."

"Is there something wrong with his face?" I asked, in the politest tone I could muster.

"He's just happy. Come, take a seat at the piano."

Ahmed went to the kitchen area, where he prepared some coffee. His odor began to dissipate. I sat at the piano as directed, resisting the urge to press on the keys. Even while not being played they seemed to produce music with their silence. I pressed my foot down on one of the pedals and felt the piano's drone.

"I play myself," Ahmed said. "Mainly show tunes. Go ahead, try me. And I'll tell you if I can play it."

I decided I would humor him. "How about something from West Side Story?"

He stopped what he was doing suddenly, and his face turned rather serious. It frightened me. "Dare is a place fur'uzz," he sang. "Anyplace fur'uzz." His fingers lightly tapped the air.

It occurred to me that this didn't prove he could play the song, or the piano. "Soomewheeeeerre. Soomehooooww."

"Nicely done," was all I could think to say.

"See, I told you I could play anything."

"Indeed."