Jay Rubin

 You Have to Use Your Brains to Survive

            The guard looked down his nose at me. “You an attorney? Can't even be here right now unless you're an attorney.”

            “I'm an interpreter.” I asked if I could wait in the lobby, at least. 

            “Be my guest.”

            I moved to the corner and sat on a heating vent. The room filled with men and women in wrinkled suits who all knew the check-in procedure. I felt invisible, like the rookie that I was, until a tall thin man with a shaved head walked in, consulted his phone, and stared right at me. He emitted the glow of the chronically underslept, those city dwellers for whom fatigue is its own free adrenaline.

            I jumped to my feet as the man narrowed his eyes and moved toward me. I was wearing my regular get-up, but to him I probably looked like a down-and-out harlequin. My purple-and-white striped shirt clashed with the plaid pea coat I was attempting to pass off as a blazer. My pants were rolled to hide their frayed cuffs. My boots were bulky and scuffed, appropriate for a hike in the Catskills or a Mason-jar wedding.

            “Sorry,” I said when he was standing right in front of me. “My dashiki's at the cleaners.”

            The man cracked a thin smile and introduced himself as Arthur Offerman. He was a decade older than me, probably in his early 40s, I estimated as he walked me back to the guard desk. We confirmed I was on the facility's approved list, then I asked him what our client was in for while we loaded our valuables into a locker. Credit card fraud, counterfeit purses, I imagined. Something nonviolent, nearly victimless. The assignment would be over in a few hours or, at the most, a few days.

            “Importation of heroin,” Offerman said as he slipped off his wristwatch.

            Shit--I wouldn't know all the words. The importation of heroin would have its own vocabulary. Most of sub-Saharan Africa neither produced nor consumed a lot of hard drugs. How had a guy named Feruzi Fahari gotten involved in the dope trade?

            Waiting to be let through the next door, Offerman told me he had a case once where he requested a Wolof interpreter. “You should've seen the client's face when the judge, an old Jewish lady who had been in the Peace Corps, said 'I can handle it.' It's New York,” he added, “you never know what you're gonna get.”

            In the next room was an imaging booth, the kind used in airports. Hands over my head, I started to sweat. Dropped into an open-air hoteli again, no doubt I could still charm my way to a discount on a bulk purchase of beer or a handful of expertly rolled joints. But if I came off as overly friendly to an accused heroin importer, he might try to play me, and I could find myself in serious trouble. Air whooshed across my face as the door spun. Play it safe, I decided. Be like the body scanner and just take information in, spit information back out.

            Offerman nodded at my dictionary with the warped blue cover as it emerged from the X-Ray machine. “What, you're not fluent? I hope you know slang, at least.”

            “I'm fluent,” I said right away, “I just want to make sure I get all the nuances right.”

            After we got our stamps, I followed Offerman into a vestibule about half the length of a subway car. We walked up to a window of one-way glass and, one by one, held our hands beneath an infrared light. I started to sweat again. “Clear!” shouted a voice from behind the window, harsh and metallic. A guard opened the final door.

            In the large, brightly lit visiting room, dark-skinned men in red coveralls hunched over long tables and conferred with attorneys. Offerman ushered me into one of the conference rooms that lined the rear. The smaller chamber was furnished with a Formica table and three scoop-bottomed plastic chairs. I looked out through the wall of glass, but none of the men shuffling in from their cells carried themselves like East Africans. Then I spotted who I intuited was Feruzi Fahari. He didn't look like a kingpin, he looked like he'd fit right in with the men on the other side of the world who I'd been friends with for years. He was short, compared to most Americans. His forearms were muscular but the rest of him got lost inside his roomy jumpsuit. He inched ahead, standing up straight, stopping at each conference room to check for a familiar face. As soon as he saw Offerman, he jutted his neck forward and peered in at us with bright expectant eyes. One of his eyes peered in, actually, the other danced and jerked in its socket. Offerman waved him in and, automatically, I stood to greet him. “Salama?”

            “Salama.”

            “Jina langu ni Ray.”

            “Langu Fahari.”

            “Pole na matatizo, mzee.”

            “Asante.”

            “What, are you old friends?” Offerman interrupted, still seated.

            “Sorry,” I said, settling back into my chair. “Multiple greetings are very important in Swahili.” Offerman gestured to the empty seat and Fahari filled it. His hair was neatly cropped, like many of the men I had swapped stories with in blazing outdoor bus terminals and at stalls that sold lukewarm beer. His mustache was a stylish parabola, thin and close to the lip. His eye, the one that didn't twitch, was open and guileless. He looked remarkably like my friend, Muhando, I realized. I asked him how his English was.

            “For 14 years now I've been living here as a foreigner,” he replied in Swahili. “But considering how unbelievable these charges are, it'd be best if we discussed my case in my mother tongue.”

            I tried to contain my excitement. Swahili is spoken in over a dozen countries, from archipelagos in the Indian Ocean, all the way inland to the Mountains of the Moon, and beyond. Despite my hunch as to where he was from, I needed to make sure our dialects were mutually intelligible for more than just chit-chat. “Where were you born?” I asked him.

            “Tanzania,” he answered, and I betrayed a hearty smile.

            “Sorry to interrupt,” Offerman cut in, “but you have been accused of importing heroin and conspiracy to import heroin. Do you understand these charges?"

            I checked my dictionary for the word conspiracy, then translated. 

            In Swahili, Fahari said that he did.

            “Have you ever imported heroin or conspired to import heroin into the United States?”

            Fahari said that he hadn't.

            Offerman leaned forward. “Why does the government think you have?”

            Fahari paused for a moment, then said he didn't know.

            Offerman leaned forward some more. “No ideas?”

            Fahari shook his head. He didn't look angry, as he might if he'd been wrongly accused. He didn't look resigned to his fate, either. In the absence of overt emotion, I projected onto him qualities of other Tanzanians I knew. Like my friend Muhando, he was clever and entrepreneurial, but more for the sake of subsistence than self-enrichment. Like my old Swahili instructor, who preferred to monitor a room from a corner than to sit exposed in its center, he was generous but rarely unguarded. Did he, like my former lover Zuhura, have an interest in brawling? Did he flinch when he felt threatened or, like Zuhura's associates she referred to as her brothers, was he more likely to throw the first punch?

            “Must be a case of mistaken identity,” Offerman said sarcastically. “I bet you've never broken a law in your life.”

            I paused. If my client had been a 10-year-old boy taking a placement exam, or his mother, applying for a reduced-fare Metrocard, I would've had no qualms rewriting the script so it was easier for them to understand. I was reluctant to do so for a man accused of a serious crime, but already I could see that if I adjusted the translation just a little, Fahari might give Offerman the information he needed in order to defend him. “From the eyes of someone watching,” I said, “have you ever done anything that could've been mistaken for something suspicious?”

            Fahari's eye, while I counted to three, didn't twitch once. “I used to send small packages of toiletries to my mother,” he said. “Aftershave, deodorants. Around the holidays, so she could make a little extra money.”

            “Very interesting,” Offerman said after I translated. He leaned back in his chair, doing his best to look casual. “Did you ever put money inside the containers?” From my untold hours chatting away under tattered tarps, sitting on discarded tires, I knew Offerman's question was too direct. Fahari shook his head. Still leaning back, Offerman asked Fahari if he knew anyone involved in the drug trade.

            I put the question through a slight filter and asked Fahari if he could think of any friends, family members, or neighbors who he suspected were involved in illicit activities.

            Fahari's eye twitched three times in rapid succession. He said no.

            “Well the government seems to think otherwise,” Offerman rebutted as he flipped shut his legal pad. “I have to get across town to Rikers. Maybe next time you'll be ready to talk.”

            I couldn't believe Offerman was done with the interview already. We were just getting started, and nothing, especially not anything sensitive, got traded quickly in Swahili. While Offerman gathered his papers, I asked Fahari where in Tanzania he was from.

            “Dar es Salaam. The Sinza area,” he said. “You know it?”

            It was the neighborhood that was said to be kwa wajanja, for tricksters. Also, that its drinking establishments outnumbered its residences. A decade earlier, my friend Muhando had put me up there for the full length of my 90-day visa. I knew dozens of Sinza dwellers by name and was on a warm friendly basis with hundreds of others. “I've passed through it,” I said.

            Offerman held the door while Fahari and I rose and shook hands. Without thinking, the handshake progressed into the three-part palm squeeze, upward shift and finger snap that I had learned in Sinza. Offerman glanced back at the sound of the snap. “Subiri,” Fahari said. Wait.

            “No, I gotta run,” Offerman said after I translated. He gestured with his hand to the spot on his wrist where, back beyond security, he'd be wearing his watch again. Fahari begged him to return. He didn't say please. The sincerity of the request was built into how the verbs were conjugated.

            “If you could come back for just a moment,” I said.

            Offerman rolled his eyes but seemed all too happy to return. It was just like haggling over a bolt of colorful cloth in a bustling soko. Play it cool, act like you don't need it. Seated in his chair again, Offerman crossed his arms and made a show out of looking impatient. Fahari leaned forward with his elbows on the table and bowed his head. In a hushed voice, he repeated that he had no involvement in the heroin trade. But there was this acquaintance of his who moved to America shortly after he did and married his cousin. The guy didn't hold down a regular job. He was always traveling to Vietnam, to Brazil, back to Tanzania again. Fahari suspected this in-law was involved in something, he explained, so he tried to keep his distance.

            I summarized and added a coda: “But as an immigrant from a country where nothing is of greater importance than family ties,” I said, “I couldn't always avoid the man who married my cousin.”

            “You worked for him, this in-law,” Offerman suggested. “Under him, as part of a cell?”

            I asked Fahari if it was possible that, to someone surveilling, family gatherings looked like an excuse to conduct business.

            Fahari sighed and said it was possible.

            Offerman took his pad back out and began to scribble. “According to federal government, your role in the cell is to recruit mules in Tanzania. Is this true?”

            I explained that in English, people who transport things across borders are referred to as mules. I spoke quickly, hoping Offerman wouldn't grow irritated, but communicating efficiently was not the norm in Swahili. I informed Fahari that a mule was the sterile offspring of a donkey and a horse, usually. Had he ever discussed human versions of such carrying creatures in his conversations with his in-law?

            Fahari threw his hands up. “What is this about donkeys?” he said in his loudest voice yet. “I've been locked up for two months, unable to support my family, and you talk to me about donkeys and horses?” He paused, leaned in, then added, much more quietly, “How can you assist me?”

            Offerman, dry as could be, explained his options were to cooperate or to plead not guilty. Bail was set at $100,000.

            Fahari became exasperated again. “I don't have that kind of money!” he said, tossing up his hands. “And what can I reveal? I only know the same generalities about drugs that you know. When I came to America in 2000, that business hadn't entered Tanzania yet. And how many times I have returned?” Fahari extended a lengthy index finger. “Not even this many,” he said.

            “Any information you provide,” Offerman responded, “can be a bargaining chip. If you don't know anything about drugs, maybe you know something about weapons smuggling, or terrorism.”

            Fahari answered that he'd never held a gun in his life and what on Earth could he possibly know about terrorism? I believed him. Most Tanzanians abhorred violence.

            No longer looking like he was in a hurry, Offerman withdrew a document from his folder. “I've gone over your eavesdropping warrant,” he said. “It says someone who appeared to be you delivered heroin to an apartment in Brownsville on the night of August 6.”

            Fahari said he'd never delivered heroin to Brownsville or to anywhere else. Besides, he wasn't living in New York the previous August, he noted, he was in New Jersey.

            “So what,” Offerman said, still playing the tough interrogator. “You commuted.”

            “Haiwezekani!” Impossible! Fahari shouted. 

            Offerman didn't blink. And Fahari didn't understand why his advocate was acting more like an adversary. I leaned toward Offerman, held out my palms and and pleaded, non-verbally, to interject. Offerman nodded, and I said that perhaps Fahari had an alibi that placed him somewhere else.

            Offerman narrowed his eyes at me. “Ask him.”

            I turned to Fahari and spoke in rapid Swahili. “The police in this country are racist, right? The warrant says it was someone who looked like you. It could've been anyone with dark skin.” Fahari nodded. “Can't you prove you were somewhere else?”

            Fahari rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. “I would've been on the swing shift at Supply Corp.” Realizing I hadn't heard of it, he added, “I would've been breeding mice for medical trials.” It sounded like an awful job. I tried not to look disgusted. “My wife keeps all my pay stubs,” Fahari went on. “They'll prove I wasn't in Brownsville, I know it.”

            Offerman was unimpressed. “While she's going through her files she ought to get your fixer-upper appraised,” he said, “see if you can put it up as part of a bond.” Fahari's eye twitched. Was he nervous about missing mortgage payments? Offerman leaned in and, for the first time, Fahari slumped back in his chair a little. “Even if your wife finds pay stubs,” Offerman said, his voice low and menacing, “you still could've delivered the heroin. You could've had someone else punch in for you, right?”

            Fahari raised a hand to his brow and shuddered. “I am so frustrated...I am not a heroin dealer...I am nothing,” Fahari said between fits and starts. “If I had capital to import drugs, I wouldn't have bought a tired house in New Jersey, I would've returned to Bongo!”

            “What's Bongo?” Offerman asked.

            “Nickname for Dar,” I said quickly, because Fahari wasn't done yet. “I'll explain later.”

            “Now my sister is saying that my getting arrested,” Fahari said after another shudder, “is what gave my mother the heart attack.” He began to sob. A tear streamed down his face. Offerman looked unfazed. Maybe he'd already heard about Fahari's family troubles at one of their status hearings. 

            “Pole,” I said. “Pole sana.”

            Fahari wiped his eye. “When I was 18,” he said, “my father died, so I came to America to look for life.” If Fahari was 18 in 2000, that meant we were both 31 or 32. The year he came to America was the year I began studying Swahili at university. Fahari wondered aloud how many years his wife would wait for him. “One? Two? Okay, but who would wait 10? She is only human.”

            Stone-faced, Offerman said that for a reduced sentence he had to provide information.

            Fahari jutted his hands forward. “How can I provide information if I don't know anything? Duh! I'll do 10 then, what, go on trial for immigration violations? If I provide information, is there a chance they'll let me stay?”

            Offerman explained matter-of-factly that felony drug convictions were grounds for automatic removal, no matter how long the sentence. Now Fahari's eye was twitching nonstop. He was starting to panic. I told him to take a deep breath, and he did. “I have two children, both born here,” Fahari said after he calmed down. “My life is in America. If they deport me, I won't have a life.”

            As I translated, the message sounded doubly dire, coming out of my own mouth in English. Did Fahari mean he would have no means of supporting his family from afar, or was he suggesting that, back in Tanzania, someone might try to kill him?

            Fahari pivoted in his chair so he faced me. “You've lived in Tanzania,” he said, looking into my eyes like I was his fellow countryman rather than a white-skinned freelance interpreter from the USA. “Imagine me returning after cooperating with the government. I won't have a life anymore. You get me? I won't have a life.”

            I gulped, and said that I did.

            Back in the lobby, I told Offerman that Fahari was telling the truth. “We'll see soon enough,” he said as he glanced at his phone. “The judge just granted you authorization to pour over his calls.”

            On the way out of the jail, I was struck by the mirror-plated doors I'd been too preoccupied to notice on the way in. They were identical to the doors at the airport in Dar es Salaam. It wasn't my sunburned face staring back at me now, smiling because I'd survived another trip to that notoriously slippery city. It was my professional face--a mask of eyeglasses, combed hair, and neutral expression. Learning Swahili had taken me to pulsating nightclubs and pristine beaches. I never could have guessed, back in 2000, Swahili would take me into the maze of America's criminal justice system.

            And like that my reflection was gone. I was back in the June sun, standing on the steps of Metropolitan Detention Center, asking Offerman how soon we could return. I asked him, too, why he'd interrogated Fahari so harshly. Was it to see how he'd stand up to cross-examination?

            “Inmates who aren't from here,” Offerman said cryptically as we crossed the street, “don't talk unless you push them. Which way you headed? You need you a lift?”

            I was dying to know more, so I asked for a ride to Barclays Center. Offerman's car was a black BMW 02 Series, with headlights like cartoon eyes. Merging onto the BQE, I asked how Fahari had gotten arrested. Offerman told me he'd been spotted near JFK when a shipment was due. Federal agents pulled him over on Archer Avenue and swarmed his car. I asked if he had drugs on him and Offerman said no, that wasn't how these things worked. I asked what kinds of cases he usually handled and he said drugs, assaults, rapes. “The occasional murder,” he added without a twinge. His plate sounded full. Exiting the expressway, I asked how many cases he handled at once. “Sixty or 70,” he said. “More when I'm busy.”

            “Mungu wangu!” I responded, still thinking partially in Swahili.

            “What's that?”

            “My god!” I translated. When would Offerman have time to go through evidence, interview key witnesses?

            “Well, it's better to be too busy than too slow. What's this Bongo business?” Offerman asked as we cruised past a row of halal shops on Atlantic Avenue. “Why's that the nickname for Dar es Salaam?”

            Bongo was Swahili for brains, I told him as we pulled over next to the arena. “If you want to live in Bongo, the saying goes, you have to use your brains to survive.”

Jay Boss Rubin has worked as a Swahili instructor, translator and interpreter for over a decade. His creative writing has appeared in Cosmonauts Avenue, Kwani? Journal, The Rumpus and other publications. His contribution to this issue of Barzakh Magazine is the opening chapter from his literary crime novel, Operation Tembo. An excerpt from the middle of the novel will be published in Buckman Journal later this summer. Twitter: gone2bongo