Internment

The camp orientation, conducted in the auditorium of the administration building, is unsettling and surreal. The detainees gather under a banner that says “Unity, Security, Prosperity.” The Director, a sallow-faced administrator who acts like “an entertainment director on a cruise ship” (90), talks up the opportunity for the detainees to create a happy community. He points out that the camp provides each block—the detainees are sectioned off by ethnicity and culture—with “minders” who come from the Muslim community and who will help them in their adjustment to camp life. A woman challenges the Director, denouncing minders as collaborators. Guards surround the woman, slap her, tase her, and lead her away.

At Mess after the orientation, detainees, including Layla and Ayesha, wonder where the woman is. Rumors spread of other internees who have disappeared, led away at night by camp security. Each block eats when they are called by the minders, a protocol that Layla finds insulting. As she returns to her family’s trailer, she catches a glimpse of the guard with the compass tattoo. He smiles at her. That night, Layla cannot sleep. She thinks her family could be in the camp for a long time, “buried and forgotten” (111).