Impossible Odds

seriously regard it as a threat.
    •  •  •
    After a few days of separation, somebody decided to bring Poul back to the camp. No explanation, of course, just one day there he was. We tried to catch up on what had been going on, but real conversation remained difficult around those guys. It was just another term of isolation served out here on the nothing farm where nothing is planted and nothing is grown. They kept us physically separated nearly all of the time, enough to prevent any conversation.
    There was a buzzing sound, faint but noticeable, and it seemed to come from somewhere way up in the air, so far overhead there was nothing to see. Like somebody operating a gas engine generator right behind the nearest cloud. It made the Somalis nervous. They always jumped up and made certain we were covered by overhead branches when they noticed the buzzing sound. I stifled a bitter laugh to think these people actually believed two aid workers were going to draw surveillance from the U.S. military. But I was happy to see their fear; it helped quash a little of the arrogance they so often displayed.
    I only half noticed the sound. There was the buzzing of desert insects, the playing of the breeze in scrub brush branches. Faint background sounds constantly blended into a low fog of soft noise. With Poul unceremoniously returned from his separation “punishment,” the two of us were once again permitted to walk in circles around the tree for exercise. He also watched the sky for satellites at night and told me how he could tell the difference between them and stars. I could understand using any technique to mentally escape, and I never gave much thought to whatever these guys feared was up there, overhead.
    All of that seemed too far away, too removed from us, to have any meaning. Instead, my days blended away inside my imagination. Since I didn’t know if I would ever see my home again, I visited it in my mind and made it a point to visualize every detail I could, to deepen the experience and prolong the amount of time I might have away from my surroundings. In spite of the fact that it had become so difficult to concentrate, I pushed myself to focus.
    I imagined being back in the apartment Erik and I shared in Nairobi, slowly walking in through the door and standing in the entranceway to look around the living room and take in every detail. I didn’t picture Erik there, at first, because I needed to warm up to the idea so I wouldn’t start crying and draw angry captors down on me or Poul.
    I mentally moved through each room, pausing to look in every direction, remembering where every piece of furniture, every piece of artwork, every decoration would be. I checked under the sofa for dust bunnies and looked over the titles in the bookcase. I smelled the warm human scent of our bedroom in the mornings. I smelled our dog, Smulan, when he was fresh from the bath. And finally, when I was ready, I pictured Erik there waiting for me, and we took each other in our arms, and I smelled his body and felt his warmth. And for just a little while, I was free in spite of this rotten place and I was happy in spite of my mortal fear. Our tormentors had no way to touch me, just then.
    I couldn’t go so far in this fantasy as to picture us making love. I thought it would surely break my heart and leave me sobbing like a kid while screaming Somali faces blew their khat breath on me and called for silence. Instead I stayed inside the apartment with him and told him everything I would say if he were right there in front of me. Once I got myself in the groove, the force of memory was nearly hypnotic. I found I could pass hours that way.
    The men still wouldn’t give me the antibiotics Erik sent, and my urinary tract infection had become so severe the only way toget comfortable was to lie in the fetal position on my sleeping mat and take imaginary cruises through my past. At least the mental journeys didn’t cause gravity to work against my troubled bladder.
    I remained at my parking spot under the tree one day while Poul accepted a surprise invitation to chew khat with some of the men. I had no idea what an invitation like that from men like these was supposed to mean, but they seemed to find it amusing to watch a foreigner partake of their favorite drug, and they seemed to want to test Poul’s response to the stuff. Naturally as a woman I wasn’t included, which was a relief in this instance. I had no desire to join these guys