Less noise was filtering in from outside, but Justin was still certain that what he did hear was human voices. No specific words were understandable, though. He had only the vague sense of a current of conversation.
He tried counting to keep some estimated track of the time. Each time he reached sixty, he’d make a little mark in the dirt. When he reached five full counts of sixty, he’d make a larger mark and erase the smaller ones. At some point, after about ninety minutes by his clock in the dirt, exhaustion overcame him. He had done nothing but count, occasionally pacing the length and width of the room, but still he was tired. The fatigue was stronger than his hunger. He lay back down on the floor, made himself as comfortable as he possibly could, although comfort wasn’t a priority; he was so tired it didn’t matter what position he was in. His eyes closed and, within moments, he was asleep.
The next thing he knew, he was jarred awake by a stabbing pain in his back.
His head jerked up and his eyes opened. A man in military fatigues was standing over him, holding a rifle. The man slammed the butt of the rifle into Justin’s back, in the same spot he’d obviously just hit to jab him awake.
Justin sat up, the pain fully registering now, hot and searing. The soldier jabbed at him again with the butt, this time clipping Justin in the chin, knocking him flat. Justin rolled onto his side, used the motion to propel himself to his feet. He took a wobbly step toward the soldier, stopped short when he saw there was a second man in the room. That man was holding a pistol, pointing it at Justin. Standing now, Justin let his arms drop to his sides. The first soldier stepped forward, expressionless. His right hand moved quickly, too fast for Justin to react, slapping him across the face. The crack resonated throughout the room and Justin could feel his cheek redden. He swayed backward but didn’t lose his balance. The room fell silent again and all movement stopped.
“Where am I?” Justin asked.
The man’s hand moved a second time, just as quickly. Justin felt the slap again and staggered several steps back this time.
“What the fuck do you want?” he said. “Or is that too tough a question for you?”
This time, when the man’s right hand flew toward his face, Justin was ready for it. His own right hand intercepted it, but he was weak, his resistance was low. The soldier was strong enough to push Justin backward, and he lost his footing. As Justin’s hands went to his side, trying to give himself some balance, the man in fatigues threw a hard right to the gut and Justin went down. He sat on the floor, gasping for air.
When he could speak, he said, “Just tell me what the hell you want from me.”
Neither man answered. They glanced at each other, the man with the pistol nodded, then they both spun on their heels and left the room. Justin could hear the door bolt behind them.
Sprawled on the floor, he fought back the strong feeling of panic that was rising from his stomach like the bitter taste of bile. He sat there for perhaps another hour, but it was getting harder and harder for him to count off the minutes in his head. All he really knew was that at some point his eyes began to close again, and he was once more overcome by exhaustion.
He could not have been asleep for more than thirty seconds before the door burst open again. Justin didn’t need to be hit, he awakened at the sound of the two men thundering through the door and instinctively curled into a protective position to help shield the blows he was certain would follow. But he felt nothing. There was just silence. When he slowly turned his head, the same two men were standing above him. One of them had a bucket, and as soon as Justin moved, the soldier dumped its contents-ice-cold water-on top of his head, drenching him.
Both men turned with military precision and headed for the door. Not a word had been spoken. Justin hurtled himself into the air and lunged for one of them, managing to grab him around his knees. He was able to do no more damage than slow the soldier down for one moment, because the other man was on him like a flash. The rifle butt crashed into the side of Justin’s head, then a thick, heavy boot thudded into his side, and Justin lost his hold. He slid helplessly to the dirt floor and made no further attempt to move until the two men had marched out the door.
Justin lay on the dirt, wet and cold and aching and remembering how quickly strength can disappear. When Alicia died, so did his foundation. Faith and hope and optimism and joy all deserted him. He had thought he was not going to be able to go on, but it turned out he was left with something at his core that helped him survive. It took him years to understand that what was there was a certain toughness, a stubbornness, a meanness really, that wouldn’t let him give in to the agony that had become his life. To the unpleasant thing that, as he saw it, had become life itself. He had felt his strength fade then, and he remembered the feeling when he knew it was back. It was the moment he knew he was not going to join his wife and daughter in whatever world they’d gone to. Now, confined in the sweaty, foul-smelling cell, he felt that strength fading again, replaced by fear and uncertainty. But as he shivered, he thought, No, no, I won’t let it go that fast; this time they can’t take my life so quickly. So he shook off his exhaustion and the aches and pains and he climbed to his feet and stood at the door and, breathing heavily, just stared straight ahead, in case, somehow, they could see him, showing them that they had done their best and that he could take it.
They were not going to take his strength away.
Others had tried. The world had tried. No one had succeeded yet. And neither would they.
Ten days later, Justin wasn’t so sure.
That’s how long the torture had gone on. He’d had no sleep. It was the same routine: anytime his eyes closed, two men would jump into the cell. He’d be kicked or slapped or beaten. Ice water would be thrown on him. Sometimes there were electric shocks. Justin couldn’t tell exactly how they were being administered. There was some kind of box, he could feel clamps on his arms or on his feet, one time something clamped over his head. His body twitched and quivered when the waves swept through him. Once the shock was so bad, he could feel himself jerk and flop upwards off the ground and into the air. Once he smelled something burning and realized it was his flesh.
Twice a day someone would come in to feed him. Never a real meal. Some bread. A piece of ham or some indeterminate piece of meat. And one small paper cup of water.
Once, one of the men in fatigues spit in the cup before handing it to Justin. Justin drank it anyway.
There was no toilet in the room. Justin picked out a corner closest to the door to shit and piss in. He had no way to clean himself off. At the beginning, he felt some revulsion and shame at his uncleanliness. But at some point, neither the smell nor the self-disgust nor the helplessness bothered him.
For several days, he tried to resist. He forced himself to do sit-ups and push-ups and walk around the tiny room. But as the beatings went on and as his hunger grew and as he began to be dehydrated, he lost any desire to resist. He just wanted to tell them whatever they wanted to know. Anything they wanted to know.
Only no one seemed to want to know anything.
Justin was not frightened by the isolation or even, strangely enough, the beatings. What was beginning to terrify him was the lack of boundaries, the fact that there seemed to be no limit to the torture. No one had spoken to him, no one had asked him a question, no one seemed remotely interested in ending the process. It was the endlessness that was getting to him. The fact that he was beginning to think it might never end.
It was the endlessness that was taking his strength away.
At one point-he didn’t know if it was day or night; with no sleep, it made no difference anyway-two soldiers entered. He’d seen one of them before but not the other. One of them had a thick piece of rope. In front of Justin the soldier tied one end into a noose and, using a stepladder he’d brought into the room, attached it to a rusty metal hook that had long ago been driven into the wall.