Walls

More people came and left and still I waited. After an hour I was starting to get worried. I began to engage others waiting in conversation so that I could implore them to let the authorities on the other side know I was being held up. A college student who came and went regularly, told me that he had been held once for six hours. After two hours men in uniforms began to come in and stand by the door and talk earnestly in hushed tones and occasionally gesture toward me and then leave.

I was a little worried because my passport was issued in Greece where I had been in the military. So it would have been obvious to them that I was either presently or ex-military. But more than that many military facilities in Greece were secret at that time. And even worse I had been in a bomb disposal unit, and they had the plans to every weapon that had ever been built --- including nuclear --- and all those made by other countries that they could lay their hands on. Of course I was only a clerk and knew nothing about any of this. I was not allowed in the same room as any exposed document, as they were all highly classified and I did not have the appropriate security clearance. But at a time like this one begins to think all the worst case scenarios.

They had me. They could do anything they wanted with me. I was powerless. I could do nothing. My country, as most in the west, had no diplomatic relations and could probably do nothing for me. The meaning and ramifications of the wall were becoming palpable.

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