Dada 109

What was the difference between me the Sea Dayak and the lady in blue. Who was she to tell my life’s history  from one brief moment at the beach? Merely by her presence as a gatherer of stories, the rush of her judgement, the sparkle of her dress did she think she could she drive me down her own path of driven footsteps; a lonely myth at the nation’s birth to her own sole creation? She would neither stand for the prosecution nor in my defence. Thank God.

The day I was arrested I was locked up in a room with several other prisoners most of them from Kalimantan. They laughed when they saw me. They asked what I’d done. I said I killed two white men with a knife and they  went quiet. But a short time later, night fell and they showed me how to set up the mat where I would sleep. By rolling up one end you could make a sort of pillow like they used to do on a seaman’s bunk. They need not have bothered. I knew this from the Dada but I let them show me just the same. It was an act of collective spirit.

Bugs crawled across my face all night long. A few days later I was put away in a cell by myself where I slept on a wooden bed. I had a bucket for a toilet and a metal washbowl. The prison was right at the top of the town and I could see the sea through a little window ringed with iron.  I thought I could even catch a glimpse of the outer docks and if not the water I could see the ships and very early in the morning you could hear the sound of the river and the bells of their engines. I could imagine where the fish dock lay but I couldn’t see that.

One day I was holding onto the bars of the window and straining to see. It was useless in the blinding light and better when the clouds came, just before the rain, when the sky dulled over and everything became green. A guard came in and told me I had a visitor. I prayed it would be Mo, I was right. Iskra must have fixed it.

To get to the visitors area, you have to walk down a long corridor then up a flight of stairs and finally down another corridor, it was almost like a ship with its alleyways of shade and brightness. I went into a very light, very bright room, lit by an enormous bay window. The room was divided into two sections by two large set of bars that ran down through the middle. Between the two sets of bars was a space of between ten or so feet that separated the prisoners from the visitors and a series of chairs in a line. Dada had told me about his time here after the strike.

I saw Mo sitting opposite me, his face was drawn and he was wearing dark clothes which were unusual for him. My first thought was to ask him why he hadn’t worn his striped white suit. He smiled and gave a little wave.