Twelfth Day

Change.

I was brought to a different room today. It was much darker than any of the other rooms I have been to since I came here. Lamps in the floor were directed at the grey-black walls to spread a dim, diffuse light. A mirror covered the whole of the far side of the room. There was a desk and a two chairs and the guard who had escorted me there told me to sit down before he left. I watched myself in the mirror; I have grown thinner already.

I sat alone for what must have been around quarter of an hour before two men stepped in. I recognised neither of them, and yet they seemed vaguely familiar. Perhaps because I meet a thousand people looking exactly like them every day; on the underground, at work, in restaurants, in shops… They both looked like average insurance salesmen wearing black suits with open jackets, light blue shirts and ties. One of them, slightly shorter than the other, sat down on the chair in front of me.
- How well do you know M?
No polite opening phrases this time. His voice was much deeper and more powerful than I expected. I told him the truth; I only know M as a business connection. True I have met him a few times, but I would not say I know him.
- You can do better than that. What is your connection with M?
Again, I was surprised by power of his voice even though he remained perfectly calm. His face was completely neutral. Trying to find the same strength in my own voice, I asked him if he had not heard my answer to his firs question. I have no personal connection with M. I only know him because he has been involved in business deals with the company I work for.
The man leant back in his chair and glanced over at his colleague, still standing in the corner. The colleague stepped over to the table, and looked me in the eyes:
- We have intelligence proving that you have in fact spoken to M on the phone three times over the past two months. Twice using your company’s phone and the last time from home. Why did you speak to him?
What was this? Of course I had spoken to M on the phone - my company was doing business with him!. I could not remember exactly what we had talked about - probably about the details of the upcoming deal, when to schedule a meeting…
- We know all that. In fact, we have records of all M’s phone calls over the past year, and any call, any email or text message you have sent in the past two moths can also be produced and presented to us within five minutes if we would so wish. Do not bore us with unimportant details - we have all the information we need in that respect. Tell us instead why M insisted on speaking to you about the deal and no one else.

I was stunned. And furious. I told them I really had no idea why M would have insisted on speaking to me about the deal. Was this another trick to make me confess something? Was it? I shouted at them to ask these questions to M instead. And why had they bugged my phone, read my emails? Was privacy not recognised as a fundamental human right? Oh, only in cases where interference with the right is not “necessary in the interest of national security, public safety or for the prevention of disorder or crime”. Well then, what crime had I committed? In what way did my phone calls to my wife or my parents constitute a threat to national security? I shouted at them. They looked calmly at me. The man in the chair nodded whereupon a guard came in and dragged me back to my room. He would not let me walk on my own as before -he lead me ahead of him while keeping a firm hand on my left shoulder. He pushed me into my room and locked the door. I could hear his steps as he walked down the corridor.

The room feels different now. It looks and smells exactly the same, and yet it is different. I know more now but I still have no idea why I am here. Because I have spoken to M on the phone? Because he asked to speak specifically to me? Why would he do that? What is it that he has actually done? Perhaps it is in the light of this new knowledge, these new questions, that the room in which I have spent the past twelve days seem so unfamiliar. What is going to happen next? Are they going to reveal even more things to me? Despite these four walls I feel I have never been so exposed in my life. I am caught in a storm with wind blowing from all directions; windows break, doors burst open and everything is turned upside down. There is no shelter to hide behind, they know more about me than I do and I have nothing and no one to clinch on to for help.