* * *
Kristin approached the precinct’s booking officer. He sat opposite the entrance, behind a chest-high desk on a stool. In front of him was a single partition of bulletproof glass. Behind the glass, officers pored over written forms or sat with their glazed eyes fixed to computer screens as they triaged the massive arrest rosters from the night prior. From a steel door at the far end of the precinct, the detained were paraded out to complete paperwork from what Kristin assumed was a holding cell. She glimpsed Peter sitting at a desk among the officers. He was cuffed to his chair, fastened to its arm by a single plastic zip tie. Deniz sat next to him and was similarly cuffed to the desk, which was empty except for a roll of dry paper towels, a mound of wet ones, and a carton of half-and-half creamer. Halogen bulbs ran in a centerline down the ceiling of the Twenty-second Precinct, their glare reflecting off the well-buffed linoleum floors. Outside, the morning light was gentle. The light here was not. Everything was very clean and adding to the harsh light was the antiseptic smell of bleach. Mixing with it all, Kristin could smell the creamer.
Deniz clumsily poured the creamer from the carton and across the paper towels with his one free hand, making a wet compress that he laid against Peter’s eyes; it stuck to Peter’s skin as thick and sticky as papier-mâché. This was an old trick, one Kristin had seen in the aftermath of other protests in other countries. The alkalinity of the cream would gradually counteract the acidity of the pepper spray, diminishing its effects. Kristin hadn’t seen, let alone spoken to Deniz in longer than she could remember, but the manner in which he took care of Peter indicated a closeness between them, a connection that Kristin could ill afford to remain ignorant of if Peter was—as she assumed—nominally within her sphere of control.
The booking officer was reading a magazine. While barely lifting his eyes from the page, he asked Kristin what she wanted. She presented her diplomatic credentials, sliding the documents through a slot beneath the glass partition. The booking officer rested his flattened palm on top of them while in earnest she explained herself, as if her credentials might be returned only if her reason for being here proved satisfactory. Kristin pointed over the booking officer’s shoulder, at Peter, saying that she had come for his release.
The booking officer closed his magazine. His mouth bent into a considered frown as he made a closer examination of Kristin’s documents. He then slid down from his stool and lumbered toward the back of the precinct, offering Peter and Deniz a scrutinizing glance as he passed them by.
Behind the rows of steel desks, which made up most of the precinct’s work space, there was a bank of a half dozen glass offices. All of the offices were empty, except for one, whose door was shut. But through the floor-to-ceiling glass Kristin could see a plainclothes detective leaning casually against a desk. A gold badge hung around his neck, glinting in the harsh light. His holstered pistol peeked out where the zipper of his faux leather jacket fell on his hip. A woman sat across from him in a chair, her back toward Kristin. The booking officer stepped inside. The woman in the chair turned around as the door behind her opened. Her eyes met Kristin’s. It was Catherine.
On reflex, Catherine jerked back around in her seat. Kristin watched as a quick, confused exchange took place between the booking officer and the detective. Kristin’s credentials were handed over, reviewed and then handed back to the booking officer, who then recrossed the precinct and reassumed his perch on the stool. “Follow me, please.” He reached beneath his desk and pressed a buzzer that unlatched a waist-high gate. He waved Kristin through, holding the gate open for her with one hand.
In his other hand he clutched Kristin’s credentials. “May I have those back?” she asked. The booking officer glanced down, as though he had forgotten that he carried them. “You’ll have to ask him about that,” he said, pointing to the glass office and the detective, who had resumed his conversation with Catherine. “And no speaking to them,” whispered the booking officer as he nodded toward Deniz and Peter, whose head was tilted upward as he leaned back in his chair, the compress over his eyes.
As Kristin walked toward the glass office she passed by them. Peter stank of the cream. It had soaked into his shirt and onto the floor around him. It was a sickly sweet odor, a vagrant smell and an inadequate remedy to the violence the police had done to his eyes. Kristin didn’t want to stare at Peter for too long and she knew that Deniz wouldn’t acknowledge her, that despite his characteristic bravado he could exercise a well-practiced discretion bordering on invisibility when circumstances required. However, through a single glance she could see Peter’s vulnerability and intuit his fear. His vision was his livelihood and so he sat, cuffed to his chair, hoping that it might return.
The detective held open the office door and the booking officer once again handed him Kristin’s diplomatic credentials. “Are you who I spoke with earlier?” Kristin asked. She rifled through her bag, searching for the slip of paper where she had scribbled the badge number. While she looked she dabbed a drop of Purell on her palm from the bottle she kept and wrung her hands together. Before she could find the slip, the detective told her that he was the one she had spoken to. He also apologized for the confusion. Kristin recognized his voice and then glanced toward Catherine, who sat with her back to the door. Catherine seemed uncertain whether or not to acknowledge her relationship with Kristin to the detective, while Kristin’s mind immediately turned to the Mercedes parked outside. Catherine never drove herself anywhere in this city. That she would drive here, for Peter, caused Kristin to suspect that what had passed between them had more depth than a casual affair. A beat of silence interrupted their conversation as Kristin and Catherine choked on their suspicions of one another.
“Pleasure to meet you,” said the detective. He offered his hand.
Kristin shook, but with a moment’s hesitation, one only she perceived—her reflex was to keep her hands clean. The booking officer returned to his desk and the detective offered Kristin a seat next to Catherine, who continued carefully to ignore her.
“I apologize, but when she arrived”—and the detective nodded in Catherine’s direction—“I assumed that she was you, that she was from the consulate. An honest mistake. You can see the chaos around here.” The detective looked past both of them, through his window and into the precinct. “It’s been like this all week.” He then returned his focus to Catherine and Kristin. “So you are both his friends?”
Kristin glanced at Catherine, curious as to whether she would answer this question and define the nature of her relationship with Peter—one that had clearly evolved considerably since their introduction. It wasn’t only that Catherine had driven herself here, to a police station in the earliest hours of the morning, on Peter’s behalf—a friend might do that for a friend, particularly among expatriates—but the way Catherine averted her eyes to the floor and the hesitation that accompanied her every movement, as if she’d determined that each gesture needed its justification, that a single motion if not properly measured could reveal her. Recognizing this, Kristin knew that Catherine wouldn’t speak first, so she did. “Yes, we are his friends.”