True is aware of the blue gull circling above them, but she doesn’t look at it, not wanting to draw attention to its existence. Rey is not so reserved. He pulls his phone out and takes pictures of it—though he doesn’t take pictures of them since that would be a violation of their agreement. True doesn’t like it, but there’s not much she can say without getting into an argument.
They gather in a loose group to walk toward the house, except for Rey, who stays behind. Miles turns back, asks curiously, “Aren’t you coming?”
Rey flashes a grin. “Didn’t I mention it? Mr. Ocampo has asked me not to attend. He doesn’t trust me to not publish this interview.”
True is sympathetic to Mr. Ocampo’s caution. She too does not entirely trust Rey to keep quiet.
Alex takes her hand. “You okay?”
“I’m good.”
Nervous as hell, but good.
They walk together through the oppressive afternoon heat, Lincoln and Miles following. They climb the steps to the screened porch, pull open the door. The porch is spotlessly clean, gleaming with fresh paint. A petite woman in a blue dress waits for them, her smile friendly as she holds open a screen door into the house. Neat black hair frames her smooth face.
“Please,” she says in heavily accented English. “Come inside.”
The floor is linoleum, the furniture wicker. Fans blow hot air around. Sheer white curtains sway in the breezes. Framed photographs are on the walls and an acrylic pitcher of juice garnished with citrus slices sits on a low coffee table, wearing a thin skin of condensation. Everything in the room is neat and clean—including the man seated on the wicker sofa.
He uses a cane to stand up from the faded green cushions. He’s short and slight, dark-skinned, with a broad nose and a face pitted by acne. No gray yet in his black hair, which he wears parted on the side and neatly combed. He’s dressed in brown slacks and a white shirt embroidered on the sleeves and around the neck with floral patterns. True is startled to notice that both his feet have been replaced with prosthetics, dark brown in color and designed to look like natural feet, but too perfect and too motionless to pull off the deception.
She forces her gaze back to his face as he looks them over, caution in his eyes.
“Welcome,” he concludes after several seconds, leaving True with the impression that until this moment he had not quite decided if he would welcome them at all. “I am Daniel Ocampo.” The woman in the blue dress moves to his side. Her smile is warm, but her eyes are wary. He says, “This is my wife, Carina.” Daniel’s voice is soft and a little hoarse. His words are pronounced with an accent that True finds challenging to understand. He acknowledges this, saying, “My English is not so good.”
“No, it’s fine,” they all say. Apologies are made, because while between them they speak Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, and some Russian, English is the only language they have in common with Daniel.
Lincoln introduces everyone. Carina urges them to sit. True hesitates, her attention drawn by movement beyond one of the windows, but it’s just Rey, wandering toward the goat pasture in back.
Miles and Lincoln sit in padded chairs. True sits on a small sofa alongside Alex, her pack at her feet and tablet in her lap. The tablet’s screen is blank, but at a touch it will display the feed from the circling gull. Carina serves everyone a glass of juice, explaining that it is calamansi juice, a Filipino version of lemonade. She joins her husband on the larger sofa, their shoulders touching.
“Delgado and… Brighton?” Daniel asks, looking thoughtfully at Alex and True. “You are not married?”
Carina pats his hand, clearly embarrassed, while Alex answers. “We’re married. True kept her own name.”
“Is it all right if I record this conversation?” True asks. “It’s just for myself, to keep the details clear.”
Daniel inclines his head in reluctant approval, perhaps guessing that she is already recording. He looks somber as he says, “It’s been many years since that terrible time but I offer my condolences. What was done to your son… it is beyond the understanding of good men.”
True says, “We would like to learn more about your time there. Of course we’ve read Reynaldo Gabriel’s interview—”
Daniel waves his hand dismissively. “Mr. Gabriel made me seem like a brave man in the story he wrote, like a hero. It isn’t true.”
True glances at the window. Rey is no longer in sight. She wakes the tablet to check the blue gull’s video feed. She is able to see it well enough without her glasses, and quickly locates him out back, leaning on a fence post, watching the goats.
“He admires you,” Miles says.
Daniel shrugs this off. “We both want to see reform.”
True is determined not to let the conversation drift. “Anything you can tell us,” she says, “about what you saw, or heard, or were told while you were being held at Nungsan—we want to hear it.”
He resists this idea with a slow shake of his head. “I cannot speak of what was done to your son. It is beyond words.”
“You don’t need to speak of that,” Alex says quickly.
Daniel regards him for many seconds. “You’re thinking of that video,” he decides. “So you know that part of the story. I never watched it. I pray I will never witness a thing like that again.” He sips his juice, puts his glass on the table, takes Carina’s hand. He says, “I don’t like to talk about my time in that place. It’s not a thing I want to remember, or be remembered for. I agreed to speak to you now only because your son was there—but I don’t think what I have to say will bring you comfort.”
Echoing Daniel’s gesture, Alex reaches for True’s hand. He squeezes it, letting her know he’s aware of what she’s thinking: I am not here for comfort.
If Daniel could offer her comfort, if there was something he could say that would ease the horror of what was done and smooth the scars that mark her life, True would refuse to hear it. For eight years she’s rejected all such words. She does not need comfort. She needs her scars. But she keeps these thoughts to herself.
She says, “We know what they did to Diego. We want to know the rest.”
Daniel looks deeply unhappy, but he says, “I will tell you what I can.”
He speaks slowly at first, groping for words: “The Saomong prison… it was under the ground. Part of a concrete bunker. Filthy and wet. Black mold on the walls. It would flood. The floor was plastic shipping pallets sinking in mud. At first I was alone, and I was sick. I could not hold anything inside me. My bowels ran. I vomited. So of course it stank. It was hot. So hot. Just the memory makes me feel sick again.”
Sweat has appeared on his forehead. He reaches for his glass. True watches his hand and notes a tremble that she’s sure wasn’t there before. He takes two long swallows of the calamansi juice, then continues, speaking faster now. “I think they tried to ransom me, but there was no money, and this made them angry. They began to beat me. Every day they order me outside and I am whipped or beaten with sticks. One day I refuse to leave my prison. They come down the stairs and drag me out and it is worse. They told me I must renounce God, but I refuse. I tell myself I am ready to die. I thought it was true.
“Eight or nine days like that. It does not sound like a long time, does it?” His face squeezes as if he’s perplexed, struggling to make sense of the nonsensical. “I prayed for strength, for forgiveness, for pity. I was granted none of those things. Then they brought the two American soldiers in.
“The one was wounded. Shot three times.” Daniel points to his own body as he says, “His side, his leg, his shoulder.”