Fifteen

When I was brought back the next day, the air conditioning in court was fully functioning. It needed to be. Even from the prison van I could feel the brightness of the sky and the heat that seemed to penetrate even the metal grilles. It did not matter. As if by rote, the members of the jury were fanning themselves in some sort of expectant rhythm. The speech for the defence seemed to me interminable. At one moment though, I picked up my ears. It was when I heard my lawyer say, ‘yes it is true I killed two men.’ He referred to me as if he was speaking of himself. It seemed so strange .I did not understand but bent to one of the policemen at my side. ‘What is he driving at?’ I raised my finger in the Brief’s direction. The policeman told me to shut up. After a moment he whispered. ’They all do that, it’s called transference. They take on the fact that the jury think it is you speaking, and they are looking at you but is him speaking. Did you used to see all that stuff they did on the fairgrounds years ago. These fellers are not a patch on those acts’ It seemed to me that it was to further exclude me from the case. I wanted to jump up and say, ‘this is me, the Sea Dayak’ but it didn’t seem to matter. I didn’t want to be slung down again like the termination of yesterday’s proceedings. He was a poor ventriloquist, an even poorer image maker and nobody seemed to believe what he was saying anyway; whoever he thought he was. I felt his words dribble away like water in the sand and wished I was at the beach. He hurried through his plea of provocation but without much commitment and with a lot less talent than the flowing phrases and dominant constructions of the prosecutor. ‘He also knew about ‘me’,’ he said. He had closely studied me he said. He turned. ‘Unlike my learned friend I have found something there. Indeed,’ he added. ‘I may say that I have read the prisoner’s mind like an open book’. What he had read there was an excellent young fellow, a steady conscientious worker who did his best by all around him, especially his employers at the fish market. If it had not been for an unfortunate set of circumstances at his parent’s home he would have continued with his studies. I was popular with everyone and sympathetic to anyone’s trouble. Accordingly, I was a dutiful grandson who had supported his Dada when all turned away from him, knowing his time in prison had weakened him and after anxious consideration when he could see him failing, undertook to research the home up the river where he passed his final days as a content old man. He knew that his Dada needed more comfort and security than he his grandson was able to provide.’ Even I was confused by now as to which voice, place or time my lawyer now resided in.