JAQUET RIVER, New Brunswick, March 26, 2024 – When they took us away, I didn’t know how far they would take us or how long we were expected to stay. We just went with them because we saw no other option that would lead to life, at least not to a life that was worth living.

We didn’t trust them. I need to get that out there and lay it down at your feet so that you’re clear about our motives. We didn’t trust them but we went with them because we wanted what they offered. We wanted the food and the promise of more food, and the warmth, and maybe even a bed to sleep in. We were tired of being hungry all the time and sleeping on the ground. But we didn’t trust them and didn’t tell the interpreter our real names or where we were from. We lied and then we lied about lying and we didn’t care. We knew they were lying too, but they had food and we didn’t, and so we went with them.

I don’t know where the camp was. They blindfolded us part of the way and changed wagons a few times. I lost all sense of direction and then suddenly we were there, wherever there was. I could smell something cooking, maybe soup. It smelled good. But I couldn’t see anything because they kept us blindfolded until they’d looked us over and decided who to keep. I don’t know what they did with the ones they didn’t keep and I don’t know who made that decision. I just know they took us outside to get cleaned up and not all of us came back inside. We were still blindfolded when they took us to get dressed in some kind of a uniform and then sat us down on long benches in a mess hall. That’s when we were told to take off our blindfolds.

We looked at each other’s freshly combed hair and clean faces across the tables like we were looking at strangers. They wouldn’t let us talk and there was only so much we could say with our eyes. But there was food and there was warmth. And so we ate in silence, grateful for these small mercies and for feeling strangely safe among our sworn enemies.

I think part of the reason they wouldn’t let us talk is that they couldn’t understand us. We couldn’t understand them, either, though we quickly got used to being ordered around by the swords they were always pointing at us, even when we were sleeping. They didn’t trust us any more than we trusted them. The only privacy they gave us was in the latrines or the bathhouse, where we had to go one at a time, never more than one at a time, and never more than for a few minutes. Any longer, and one of them would show up barking an order we didn’t understand and waving a sword in our face.

I’d been a prisoner before, but this was different. They used us for labour, mostly in the fields around the camp and some of us for housekeeping duties like laundry and cooking. There were no fences. We were free to leave if we wanted to, but where would we go? Jerusalem was in ruins. All our villages were destroyed. They knew our shame was chains enough. We all, at some point, thought about running, but none of us did. We stayed where we were because of the food and the warmth, and eventually because of the silence. After what we’d seen, it was better not to speak.

When the sickness started, it hit them harder than us. At first they thought we’d done something to the food and beat us for it, but when they saw that we were getting sick, too, they backed off. It wasn’t the kind of sickness you’d get from food, anyway. It was something else, something none of us had seen before. It would start with coughing and a fever and then blood would pour from every part of their body, like their swords were carving them up inside. From the time the coughing started until death overcame them was a span of only a few days. We looked after them as best we could and then some of us got sick. That’s when they decided to break camp.

I went with them because I didn’t know what else to do. I’d been with them at that point for about six months and gotten used to the harsh incomprehensible barking and omnipresent swords. It’s amazing what you can get used to and grow fond of. I even mourned their deaths, these mine enemies.

I can’t say they treated us well, but it could have been worse and it was far far better than being left to rot in what was left of Jerusalem. When we met up with some other refugees at the Egyptian border, they let us go. They were more concerned about their own survival and so had no more use for us. It was bittersweet to see them trundle off in their wagons. Whatever hate I’d felt for them at the beginning had long since melted into a kind of grateful familiarity that surprised me. They were nothing like I’d expected. Jeremiah had told us as much.

Too bad more of us hadn’t listened.