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Coda
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399 Coda Anant Raut: Paradise It was the part of the afternoon that pops the thermometers in Guant ánamo from “Sweltering” to “Broiling,” yet that hardly seemed to faze the female soldier jogging past our van. “Around here, we call it the ‘2-9-2,’” yelled our escort from the front, struggling to be heard over the noise of the van willing itself up the steep road to the prison camps. “What’s that?” “Girls who are 2s on the mainland are 9s here but go back home and are 2s again.” “Fascinating.” Scrub and cacti sloped down in all directions. Off in the distance, the blades of three wind turbines spun lazily, cranking out some small fraction of the base’s energy needs. “Yeah, me and a couple of buddies were thinking of printing up Tshirts that said, ‘You’re One Plane Flight Away From Being Ugly Again.’” He snickered and slapped the steering wheel. “I can’t think of any possible downside to that plan.” A stern look from the more senior soldier sitting behind him sobered him quickly, but laughed he had, because when you’re barely twenty, twenty-one, that kind of stuff is funny. These are the boys we send to fight and die for our causes. “You know, we don’t hate all of the guards here,” Abdullah had told me during our last visit. I leaned forward in my green plastic lawn chair toward the card table that separated us in the interview trailer. “You don’t?” He shook his head. “The ones that treat us with respect, we treat with respect. They’re just doing a job. We understand that.” • • • 400 Coda With a grateful screech, our van pulled over to the side of the road. They were moving prisoners around in Camp Echo and needed us to stand down for about fifteen minutes. Our translator tapped me and my colleague on the arm and gestured to a rustle of brown by the side of the road. “Hey look,” said our more senior escort. “It’s Stubby.” An iguana darted out onto the roadway, stared down the van, and then walked cockily over to the other side. Where his tail should have been dragging was a stump followed by mystery and folklore. Hence the name. I rocked back and forth on my heels, trying to generate a breeze, as the guards at the camp entrance went through my bag. I nodded at a guard standing cleverly in the shade; she nodded politely back. “How’s it going?” I called out. “Fine, sir.” “How long you been in Paradise?” “Too long, sir.” “Watch the Super Bowl last night?” “I don’t care for football, sir.” A glance at the Velcro patch where her name should have been, and I remembered that the guards were expressly instructed not to reveal any personal information, not to the prisoners, not even to their lawyers. Idly, I wondered how far I could take it. (“Is that the ocean?” “I can neither confirm nor deny that sir.” “Does November come before December?” “Never cared much for calendars, sir.” “Do the planets move in elliptical orbits?” “I don’t subscribe to Keplerian motion, sir.”) “Who are you here to see?” asked the guard with the clipboard. You knew a guard was important if he was carrying a clipboard. “Abdullah al-Anazi.” The guard looked up at me with exasperation. I knew what was coming next; I provoked it every time. “We only go by numbers around here.” “514.” The guard began looking down his sheet once more. “The double amputee.” • • • [54.88.179.12] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:56 GMT) Coda 401 “Yeah, Stubby’s an ornery one all right!” our driver chortled. “Look at the way he looks at you. Look at him,” said the second escort , watching Stubby saunter nonchalantly across the road. “He ain’t afraid of nobody.” “This one’s real peaceful,” the guard told us as he unlocked the door. “You won’t have any problems with this one.” “Our paralegal Nicole was down at the beach one time, and one of them came right up to her and ate all of her grapes,” said my colleague. “They love sugar,” said the older escort. “They can smell it. One time, I had a butterscotch in my mouth. Stubby chased me clear cross a parking lot for it.” “Can you still walk on those?” Abdullah had hiked up the khaki legs of his...