Ten

My case was progressing as the police put it. Sometimes when the conversation dealt with general matters, I was even included. I started to be able to breathe freely again. During these meetings, no one was unkind to me, everything was so natural, so well organized and so seriously played out that I had the ridiculous impression that unlike my friends on the outside I was one of the families of the law and we could all be great pals together.

A friend of mine was a very good footballer but sadly he busted his knee. When the physiotherapist saw him, my pal thought he was in the company of professionals but in reality he was just only another client.

‘I have learnt everything I know from football’ he told me.

I was just the same as him but it disabused me of such fancy notions. I was only a prisoner who was getting by, happy to share a joke now and then.

Throughout the entire eleven months of my incarceration it was a surprise to realise that the only times I had ever really enjoyed in company were the rare times when the detective would walk me to the back door, pat me on the shoulder and say to me in a friendly tone of voice, ‘that’s all for our little soldier today.’ He sounded like my Dada when he talked of ships and rivers and the Blue funnel line or of Iskra and me and Mo as ‘his little gangsters’. I would have tears in my eyes at such kindness when he passed me back to the guards.

Certain things I never like talking about are sometimes clear. He caught me there that old policeman. He came close. I realized after my first few days in prison that It wouldn’t do to dwell on that part of my life in my father’s house. Mo knew it and that was enough. He didn’t find it so very strange;

‘it’s like that all over this island’ he said.

This was new to me; it was like if someone asks you suddenly if you had a happy childhood? It wasn’t only Dada that fell into such huge rages. He could have been a doctor in them.

Later, such worrying no longer bothered me, it wasn’t necessary to wonder what might happen after Dada’s death. To tell the truth I wasn’t really in prison after the first few days. It was like I was transported back to another time, Just vaguely waiting for something new to take place like the fish dock raging with fire after someone set light to a Thai fishing boat  or to have days of unbroken sunshine. It was only after the first letter Mo told me they wouldn’t let him come because he wasn’t related to me, from that day on, I knew where I was. This cell was my home and my life would end here.