Satisfied, the interrogator got up and left the room. The two guards remained. Then the one at the door said to the one who had beat him, “Is he dead, Comrade?”
“If only he were that lucky.” The older guard spat, disgusted, the bludgeon still in his hand. “We can’t take him back to the cell now, short of carrying him.”
The younger one moved from the door, stood over Tun, and, with the butt of his rifle, pushed him on the shoulder so that Tun fell flat on his back. “I’ll stay with him. Until he can move again,” the boy offered. The older guard hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. “Make sure you call me when he’s ready.”
Once they were alone, the younger guard lowered himself onto his haunches, his AK47 in the crook between his abdomen and thighs. Tun recalled this was how the boy had held his gun when he’d first laid eyes on him that long-ago morning by the stream at the forest encampment. How the boy would always hold his gun when not fighting, as if cradling it. “Why won’t you die?” his former trainee growled, leaning low into Tun’s face. “Why are you so pigheaded? Why do you still hang on?”
Tun struggled to express himself. “You . . .” I know you. You were once under my command, my care . . . It was obvious from the look in his eyes that the guard remembered. Tun said the only thing that mattered— “Why . . . don’t you . . . help me then? To die.”
Back in the chamber with the other prisoners, Tun slowly came to his senses, and he began to regret his words. He imagined what would happen if they reached the chief interrogator’s ears. Who do you think you are? Only the party will decide how and when you die! It would be one thing if they killed him for having spoken so boldly, but he knew they could make him suffer far more terribly than he already had. Each time he thought he’d endured the worst, they shoved him deeper into the abyss, reminding him there was no limit to their evil. Tun told no one, not even Sohkon, whom he trusted with his life—whom he’d entrusted with ending it, should such a moment present itself.
Weeks passed, his injured eye began to heal, the swelling reduced bit by bit, though it still throbbed painfully, and he could no longer see clearly with it. His right cheekbone did not shatter, as he’d believed, but was badly bruised. His body vigorously healed itself. While others around him died, Tun, to his utter dismay, continued to live. He kept waiting for something to happen, and yet he knew not what . . . Lightning to strike this whole place down? A miracle, a greater force than this evil to wipe them all out? At times he wondered if he’d imagined the whole exchange with the boy.
Then the day arrived when it was his turn again in the interrogation room. Like countless times before, they brought him in blindfolded, but before they even had a chance to position him as they wanted, commotion broke out in another part of the prison. At first all he heard was the sound of gunshots, then running footsteps, and the breathless voice of a guard at the door, addressing the chief interrogator: “Elder Brother!—A prisoner’s stabbed his own throat!”
The interrogator allowed the guard to catch his breath, and then asked, “Did he die?” his placid tone in stark contrast to the guard’s excitable words.
“No, Elder Brother. Well, almost . . . I don’t know.”
“I heard a gunshot.”
“Yes, Elder Brother, one of us fired our gun to warn him not to die . . . he must wait for you. It’s not our fault. He asked for pen and paper. He said he wanted to confess. We told him you were busy now with another prisoner, he must wait his turn. He insisted. So we sharpened a stick—a fake pencil—and tossed it to him. ‘Here, you dog, write your shit!’ A joke, Elder Brother. We meant it as a joke. He used—”
“Enough!”
Dead silence.
With his blindfold still on, Tun could not see beyond shadows. But he felt the fear around him thick as walls.
“How unfortunate,” the chief interrogator murmured. His calm pronouncement sent a shiver through the room. Tun could feel him rising from his desk. At the door, the interrogator paused and said, “You two come with me. And you, take this prisoner back to his cell.”
The guard gripping hold of Tun’s arm replied, “Yes, Elder Brother.” It was the boy.
For a moment there was absolute stillness, and then Tun sensed the boy fidgeting beside him, adjusting the collar of his shirt, or perhaps a kroma around his neck, the checkered pattern breaking the solid black of his pajama-like uniform. Tun heard the soft timbre of thread breaking, and a second later felt the hard, cold press of steel at the center of his palm.
“Here’s your way out,” the boy whispered. “Do it right. Otherwise, we both pay.”
*
Tun stared at the tiny blade, so delicate it resembled a piece of jewelry. A pendant perhaps. A spear-shaped amulet for protection. There was even a hole at the base one could thread a string through and wear it around the neck. Keep it hidden beneath a collared shirt. The top edge was smooth and linear, the cutting edge angled and tapered to an arrow tip. If he ran his thumb against it, even lightly, it would cut. The circle of rust around the hole suggested that it had been previously attached to some kind of handle with a tiny screw or bolt. Aside from the rust, it was in perfect condition. An artisan blade. A rare weapon. At Slak Daek, it could only have come from the cache of implements. That it should be in a prisoner’s possession was unheard of. Yet, here it was, in Tun’s own hand. A gift to end his life.
He had kept the blade for two days now. He could not risk keeping it much longer. So far he’d hidden it by inserting it in the hem of his ragged shirt. This was the first time he’d taken it out to examine, and he did so surreptitiously, wedging it between his thumb and palm. Even Sokhon had yet to know. His friend was gone, taken to interrogation. Many times Tun had been on the verge of telling, but he couldn’t bring himself to it. It would have made their pact so much more real, brought them that much closer to committing the terrible act, choosing who should go and who should stay . . .
Do it right. Otherwise, we both pay. The youth’s words came back to him and Tun suddenly wondered, What guides a person’s hand? His heart? What has made the boy endanger his own life for a life nearly gone? Does compassion still find its way into hell? As sometimes a sliver of light steals through a crack in a sealed window . . . The thought filled him with hope for a second, and he thought, if only he could vanish carrying this sliver of light inside him.