Asylum City Read Online Free Page A

in the face with the butt of his rifle, drawing blood. After that, no one else moved.
    â€œLIDDIE, is that you?” he asked again.
    He heard a bloodcurdling scream at the other end, followed by more coughing.
    â€œLiddie?” He was shouting, causing his three workmates to turn and look.
    â€œHelp me, Gabriel . . . help me,” he heard between tears and coughing.
    WHEN Rafik disappeared with Liddie, the Bedouins holding Gabriel started in on him, kicking him in the head, the abdomen, the ribs. Their feet kept coming, as if he were the ball of rags they used to kick around in their schoolyard soccer games. At some point he lost consciousness. When he came to he found himself chained to the rest of the men in their group. Michael offered him some water. The long cut on his face was infected. For several days he burned up with fever. He owed his life to the Israeli doctors who treated him.
    â€œTHEY beat me, Gabriel . . . help me,” Liddie begged.
    â€œWhere are you? Tell me where you are,” he shouted frantically.
    More coughing.
    â€œLiddie?”
    â€œGabriel?” The voice was male.
    â€œGive me back my sister. What are you doing to her?” He was crying now, too.
    â€œListen up, you son-of-a-bitch. If you want to see your sister again, it’ll cost you twenty-five thousand shekels. You got one week. Be in Levinsky by the slides on Thursday. We’ll find you. You don’t bring the money and we kill your sister, understand?”
    Gabriel didn’t know what to say. The excitement of hearing Liddie’s voice, of learning that she was alive, had been replaced by anxiety and horror. Where would he get that kind of money in a week? The little he earned he sent back to their mother who had stayed behind.
    â€œUnderstand?” the man repeated.
    â€œHelp me, Gabriel, help me,” he heard Liddie crying out in the background, pleading as she had done the last time, in Sinai. He hadn’t been able to save her then, but he wasn’t going to let her down again.
    â€œI understand, don’t hurt her!” he yelled.
    The call was disconnected.
    Gabriel stood there motionless for a few moments, gripping the phone tightly in his hand. He’d heard about calls like this. The Bedouins in Sinai set a price for the passage to Israel, and then in the middle of the desert they demanded more. If you didn’t pay you were tortured. People called their family, their friends, anyone who could raise the money. Meanwhile, they were held hostage.
    But the man on the phone wasn’t a Bedouin. He was speaking in Gabriel’s mother tongue, Tigrinya. Had Liddie crossed the border? Was she here in Israel?
    A chill went down his spine as he recalled how he himself had been tortured. He reached out and touched the scar on his left cheek. Like the burn marks on his hands and feet, it was a memento that Rafik’s Bedouins had left on him for the rest of his life.
    Where had Liddie been all this time? What were they doing to her?
    GABRIEL was standing at the bus stop, his drawing pad clutched to his chest. He’d asked Amir to let him off early. Time was running out. If he couldn’t come up with twenty-five thousand shekels in a week, his little sister would die. Those people had no conscience. He knew that.
    He had to find a way. He’d promised his mother before they left that he’d take care of Liddie. Now, every time he sat down to write her a letter, he felt too ashamed, too guilty, to tell her that his sister wasn’t with him.
    Where would he get the money? He lived with fifteen other Eritreans in an apartment near the old Tel Aviv bus station, five to a room. He and John shared a mattress. It had taken a long time before he could afford the luxury of a mattress and a roof over his head.
    Gabriel had heard about a man who went to the Israeli police when he got a call like this. His son was murdered.
    He had to talk to Michal and Itai. He had