I’m in a shabby atrium encircled by a series of strange, narrow rooms.
The area is dingy and neglected, like the squat from Midnight Cowboy.
These oddly shaped anterooms, which fan out from the atrium, seem to be entirely without furniture. Most of them are fitted with saloon doors to reduce privacy.
I’ve arrived in a processing zone for people moving between two radically different jurisdictions, as though leaving East Berlin or North Korea. Ahead of me is the door leading to the security area.
I can’t overstate the degree to which the place feels utterly impersonal, hopeless and bereft. It has all the charm of an interrogation room in Airstrip One.
There is no logical reason to make this area any cleaner or more comfortable.
The message is clear: you’re not as important as you think you are. You can very quickly become a footnote, if the state wills it so.
I walk into one of the narrow rooms. It boasts a shelf and a cupboard but they’re affixed to the wall in an absurdly high position. They’re almost touching the ceiling.
Enemies of the state
I’m curious about what those fittings might contain. So I brace myself between the narrow walls and edge my way upwards, one foot on either side, like a ninja. It’s surprisingly easy to reach the ceiling.
On the shelf, I discover a trove of materials such as you’d expect to find in a bargain box at a flea market: ancient sepia family photos, decades-old postcards, tatty paperbacks.
I notice that most of the items have writing on the back: addresses and scrawled messages in fountain pen and biro.
It dawns on me that these items once belonged to enemies of the state.
The anterooms represent the last place to drop your contraband and dispose of any incriminating documents, if you don’t have the means or the nerve to smuggle them over the border crossing.
The anterooms are the last place to drop your contraband
This is a goldmine of state intelligence: uncensored snippets of news, addresses of family members, messages to loved ones.
Much of it has been squirrelled away in the forlorn hope that someone else might find a way to carry the information over the border, and unite it with the right person.
Some people probably don’t make it across.
Saving a shred of humanity
I spot a paperback covered in illustrations and annotations, like a school exercise book. On one page the owner has written ‘Finally I have something to fight for.’ I really want to know the person who had the youthful conviction to write this.
It feels so desperate to encounter these messages. These people have pinned all the hopes on me – on a stranger getting their precious information over the border to safety.
I’m not in jeopardy but I have to help these people somehow. I have to rescue some shred of humanity from this godawful place.
I start to stash some of the documents about my person. I grab a couple of books and slide them down the back of my waistband. I think about secreting a few pages in my shoes.
Why did I think I could outsmart the system?
I shimmy up the walls again and over to the wall cupboard. Inside there is more material to rescue. Shit, how do I do this?
I don’t have much time and it’s difficult to filter the useful information out from the trivial paperwork.
As I return to the atrium with various messages concealed in my clothes, I catch a glimpse through the open door to the security area. I notice someone standing in their underwear, with their arms outstretched at their sides.
Of course: body searches are routine here.
What was I thinking? Why did I think it would be so easy to outsmart the system? Obviously they search everyone on their way out.
I notice a figure to my right and ask him, “Do they check everything?”
And the guy says, “yep.”
I frantically look around for a private room, to try and rethink my plans.
Desperate times
As I turn toward what I think is a vacant room, the door slams. Then the one next to it. As I wheel around, all the anteroom doors shut in succession, dramatically, like a scene from a horror movie.
Trapped, I feel my status rapidly shifting from Teflon Tourist to Person of Interest.
My noble priorities start to shift. I’m going to get discovered with all this contraband! I’m desperate to find a place to offload this smuggled personal information. Every man for himself.
After a few moments of anxious fumbling, I finally secure a room that someone is charitable enough to let me share momentarily. I try to get some clarity on things.
“They check everything?” I ask my temporary roommate.
“Yeah,” he replies.
I sigh, thinking that maybe I’ll just grab the address of one person, see if I can hide it somewhere it will not be found. Even one connection would make a difference. Then a crazy thought occurs. There’s no harm in asking.
“Hang on, do they check your phone?”
“No.”
Now, this gives me some options. I can take photos and then hide them in my deleted items. Or perhaps I can find some way to encode the information, so that a border guard won’t be able to discover it.
I whip out my phone and retrieve a document and prepare to take my first photo…
And that’s when I wake up.
I’m lying face down in my bed, the blank pillow staring back at me.
The connection has been lost. I didn’t carry a shred of critical information out of the processing zone, or out of the dream state.
