By J. MALCOLM GARCIA [Guernica] – What are you doing here? the policeman demanded.
What concern of it is yours, Abdel said in an angry voice that carried up to Magada. He approached the officer standing inches from his face.
I’m waiting for my parents.
The policeman shoved him. Watch how you talk. You better know who you’re talking to, he said. Abdel cursed him. His one mistake, Magada thinks. The policeman grabbed Abdel. The other officer got out of the van and together they opened the back doors and forced Abdel inside. By the time Magada ran downstairs they were gone.
She asked for him at the police station but was told he was not there. She described the arresting officers; not very tall, stocky, black hair. One had a mustache. Both looked to be in their thirties. The desk clerk shrugged. He did not know anyone of either description. Magada left the station and described her son to a street vendor selling oranges and bananas. Did you see him brought in, she asked. He said he did see Abdel-Hamid walk into the police station with officers on either side of him gripping his arms. Don’t worry, the vendor said. Your son is probably in the fridge.
Magada panicked. She thought he meant Abdel was in the morgue but the vendor corrected her. The fridge was an interrogation room on the third floor of the police station.
Magada and her husband hired a lawyer and met with Abdel-Hamid a week later. His head was shaved and his clothes torn as if he had been dragged across a floor.
Continued at Guernica | More Chronicle & Notices.
