Part 14 (2/2)
Every Single Day.
Cam.
I didn't know where the guard was taking me. He called me toward the cell door with a rough hand gesture, handcuffed me, and led me down a corridor slick with some kind of fluid. My heart pounded violently. He led me outside, past murky brown ponds. I could barely open my eyes in the sun's intensity. We pa.s.sed the interrogation room, where I heard the screams of a grown man and the smell of something burning. I tried to swallow, but couldn't. My legs felt like jelly, but I knew things would be worse if I stopped walking. Finally, he pushed me toward the visitor's hut, where Julia and Meh Mee were waiting.
It felt like a month had pa.s.sed since I'd seen Julia, but she said it had been six days. She gasped when she saw me, brought a hand to her mouth. Then she hugged me so tightly I lost my breath. I shook in her arms. She would make it okay. She would carry me away from here. When we pulled away, her shoulder was soaked with my tears.
”I came every day and they wouldn't let me in.” Dark blue circles cupped her wet eyes. ”Finally, I brought Meh Mee. She talked to the guards in Lao and they agreed to a bribe.” Meh Mee smiled sadly at me.
A guard watched us from the corner of the damp room. A pistol hung from his hip. Dust motes floated in the sunlight streaming in through the dark-brown slats of the wooden hut. Julia smelled like the outside - alive and clean. She reached into her stuffed canvas bag and pa.s.sed me crackers, a big bottle of juice, and a jar of peanut b.u.t.ter. She ripped the tinfoil off a small pizza from a French restaurant. The steam streamed up towards the mouldy rafters. My hands were so shaky she had to hold it up to my mouth to eat. It felt warm and substantial in my mouth. I closed my eyes and noticed the tang of the sauce, the thickness of the cheese, and the crispness of the green pepper. I had never tasted pizza so delicious.
”The Canadian government is on our case, Cam.” I liked how she said our, as if I wasn't alone. ”They're sending a rep from the Australian emba.s.sy until a Canadian official can get here. The Australian should be meeting with you any day now.”
”When?”
”We don't know. But soon.”
I looked down in my lap.
”I'm trying, honey. I am doing everything I can.” She started to cry. I looked at Meh Mee.
”Where's Somchai?”
Julia wiped her nose and reached for my hands. The room was silent.
”Where's Somchai?” I asked again.
”The investigative police interviewed him.” Julia looked away.
”What do you mean?”
”They wanted him to say he wasn't in Vang Vieng with you on the night that Nok was killed. He wouldn't do it.”
Meh Mee looked down in her lap, fingered her worn sin.
”He was beaten up badly, Cam. But he's going to be okay.”
I pushed away the pizza she was holding up to my mouth. I bit my lower lip. Silence was all around. This was too much. Anger welled up inside of me, but this time I didn't need to count it away. Fear was doing it for me. I had heard the shrieks of prisoners being punished for bad behaviour. I was so powerless.
”He's going to be okay, Cam,” Julia squeezed my hand tightly. Meh Mee nodded at me. I couldn't speak.
The guard walked towards us, pulled Meh Mee up roughly by her arm.
”We have to go now. They would only give us fifteen minutes. I will come every day, Cam. Every single day.” Julia's voice cracked. Tears streamed down her cheeks. What was I doing to them all? Everyone I cared about was suffering and it was all my fault.
She turned around to take one last look. I held up a trembling hand to wave to her.
”Every single day, Cam. I will be at those prison gates.”
”Thanks, Mom,” I said. It was the first time I had called her ”Mom” in eleven years. The word felt good in my mouth, round, soft, and rea.s.suring.
Breathe.
Cam.
Sai and I sat in the cell, staring at each other without even noticing it. Or at least I didn't notice it. Sai seemed to notice everything. I was so bored out of my mind I stared at him all the time. He fascinated me. The way nothing seemed to bother him, not even when the guards spoke to him like he was a dog. The way his breath got deep and loud when there was a commotion in the prison - a man screaming out as his legs were clamped with wooden blocks, or cellmates arguing loudly with each other in the middle of the night. It was like he would almost relax into the disturbing moment, instead of wis.h.i.+ng it away. Sometimes he would close his eyes for hours on end with his back as straight as the bars on our cell. When he was like that his belly would move in and out with his breath while the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight smile. I was sharing a cell with the Buddha himself.
One night I was led back to the cell after a day of weeding the prison vegetable garden in torrential rain. It was August, the wettest month of the Lao year. I was covered in a thick layer of slick red mud. The prison guard hadn't even let me stop to go to the bathroom. I had to p.i.s.s right there in between the wormy tomatoes and cilantro. As I pulled th.o.r.n.y weeds all I could think about was Somchai. What had the police done to him? By the time the grey day began to fade into black I was so mad that I was getting freaked out. I was afraid that I would explode and be taken to the interrogation room, and afraid of the rumours I heard of men being burned or whipped.
After the guard locked our cell door and was out of earshot, I peeled my soaking uniform away from my now-scrawny body and chucked each piece across the cell so they slapped against the prison wall and splattered mud everywhere. I grabbed the bucket for our makes.h.i.+ft shower and chucked it against the wall so hard it cracked. Huang looked up from his snoring. His lifeless eyes told me he had seen outbursts like this so many times he couldn't care less. I began to pound the hard cement wall with my fists.
”Breathe, my friend,” Sai said.
”f.u.c.k off, Sai. People have been telling me that my whole life.”
”Yeah, but do you know how to breathe?” he asked in a way that didn't make me feel like an idiot.
He walked over and gently took hold of my wrist. He stared at me with brown eyes that were soft and steady at the same time. I felt something inside me s.h.i.+ft, although my heart still flailed violently in my ribcage. My shoulders dropped away from my ears. The knots of tension in my back muscles softened. He led me to sit beside him on the hard prison floor.
”Belly relaxes out on the inhale, comes in towards the spine on the exhale. Close your mouth and do it through your nose. It filters the air.”
He closed his eyes and placed his hands in prayer at his heart. His breath sounded like waves. I closed my eyes and copied its slow rhythm. It was bizarre, but why not? There was nothing else to do.
”Now try breathing one breath per minute. You'll never feel depressed.” He flickered his eyes open briefly to speak.
”One breath a minute? How is that possible?”
”Inhale through your nose for twenty seconds, hold your breath for twenty seconds and exhale out your nose for twenty seconds. I'll count for you.”
”I feel like I'm going to pa.s.s out,” I said after trying it.
”Okay, start with eight seconds and work your way up day by day.”
”This is weird.”
”Just do it and then tell me what's weird.”
We stayed like that for a long time, sitting beside one another, inhaling and exhaling. When we finished, I collapsed onto my place on the hard floor and slept a deep, dreamless sleep.
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