I was therefore relieved to arrive at the Detention Center, which sat on the edge of the city, not too far from the Court. In the dark of night it looked forbidding, there were high walls and CCTV cameras, it was a prison in all but name. I paid the taxi driver, who asked if I didn’t want him to wait, I blushed and said that I did not know how long I would be, and that I would call a taxi when I wanted to leave. He handed me his business card and said that he would be working all night, the gesture felt salacious and also a little sad, and I dropped the card into my pocket, feeling as if I needed to wash my hands. The car lingered as I pressed the buzzer, luckily the door opened at once. I passed through a medieval gatehouse and then through security, my bag was taken away and my passport examined.
I was handed a badge and told to wait, the guard indicated a row of plastic chairs. I clipped the badge to my jacket and sat down. The area—less a reception or lobby and more a corridor along which some chairs had been arranged—was clean and anonymous, I could have been waiting in any municipal building, at an American DMV, for example. This feeling only grew as the hour passed two in the morning, and then approached three, the sensation of waiting for a slow and truculent bureaucracy increasing, I had never been in this situation and yet, as my eyes grew bleary with fatigue, I felt exactly as if I had been here before, everything about the act of waiting had removed the specificity of the circumstances, I could no longer remember for whom I was waiting, only that I was waiting for someone who might never arrive, and that I might never leave this vestibule.
A little after three, the door behind me abruptly opened. I stood, a uniformed guard indicated that I should follow. My mouth was suddenly dry, we made our way down a series of harshly lit corridors and points of entry, the guard swiping cards and entering codes until we reached what appeared to be a cellblock. The doors were shut save one, through which I could see a number of Court officials. They were speaking in not especially quiet tones, their voices reverberating down the corridor, and I found myself worrying about the occupants in the other cells, whose sleep was surely being disrupted. As we reached the open cell, the officials greeted me courteously, with a brusque air of professional urgency. After I greeted them there was a pause during which no one said anything.
Finally, one of the officials cleared his throat. There had been some difficulty in persuading the accused to leave the plane, for a time he refused to get up from his seat. He had now arrived, the official added, he was on his way. I nodded, I wondered how the accused had issued his refusal, if it was in the manner of a toddler refusing to get out of a stroller, or if it was in the manner of a political protester refusing to abandon a site, or perhaps his legs had simply given out on him and he had found himself unable to stand. The space we had gathered in was somewhere between a cell and a dormitory room, with a single bed and a desk, and a toilet in one corner. Affixed to the wall was a flat-screen television. There was a large window at the far side of the room, lined with bars.
We heard the sound of the cellblock door opening in the distance and we turned at once. Despite the fatigue and the provisional nature of the setting, a ripple of expectation moved through the room. The door slammed shut and then we heard the sound of feet shuffling down the corridor and past the other cells, with what seemed incredible slowness. I was sure that the other detainees were awake and listening, perhaps remembering their own arrival at the Detention Center, the start of what was an indeterminate and therefore all the more painful state of waiting. The sound of footfalls grew louder, and then came to a halt and the accused appeared in the doorway of the cell.
He was accompanied by two guards, he was wearing traditional robes and looked so much older than in the photograph, which could not have been taken very long ago, that I felt an immediate and inexplicable tightening in my throat. He glared at each of us in turn, he stood with his mouth pursed, it was clear that he was disgusted with the situation. We stood in an uneasy cluster until one of the Court officials stepped forward, his expression awkward and even embarrassed. He hesitated and then looked at me and I moved closer to the accused. After another pause, the official at last began, his voice apologetic and uncertain. I am going to read you your rights.
I began interpreting immediately, angling my body toward the accused and speaking in a low voice into his ear. The man jerked his head away, as if irritated by a mosquito or some other airborne insect, he gave no sign whatsoever of listening. The official paused, I finished speaking a few moments later and then the official asked if he had any questions. I interpreted, the accused exhaled noisily and I trailed off, the words withering in the air. The accused began speaking rapidly in Arabic and as he continued, now looking angrily at the official and gesturing at the room around him—which was, I gathered from his tone and manner, evidently substandard or objectionable in some way—panic surged up inside me. I looked at the official, who was staring at me expectantly. I shook my head—I knew hardly any Arabic—and turned back to the accused.