No More Tomorrows (27 page)

Pain ripped into my stomach and stress tore at my shoulders as we drove to court in the sardine bus. By the time we reached the court, I was a shaking mess. I spent an hour in the holding cell. Lily came to see me as usual. As usual, she had nothing to say. Every week she came to the holding cell, and every week I told her not to. I begged everyone not to. It set off the cameras. She’d just hold my hand, posing for the cameras, and ask something banal like, ‘Did you eat breakfast this morning?’ ‘No, Lily, I never do!’ This morning as always I went over to her, in case it was important. It wasn’t. ‘How’re you doing, Schapelle?’ The cameras went ballistic. I was her little show pony.

Hiding in the toilet was hard that morning, as Mum had overdone it with the ammonia. I had to keep leaning out to gasp for air because the fumes were so strong.

By the time the guards walked me into the court, I was feeling worse. I was mobbed, cameras right in my face, people blocking my way. I threw up, just missing someone’s foot, and wiped vomit from my face before I reached the courtroom door. The guards released both my arms. This was it. I would learn my likely fate. I paused for a second, lifting my shaky hand to hold the cross around my neck and saying a quick prayer. ‘Lord, fill me with your holy spirit; set me free, free to be all you’ve created me to be. Also send your angels to fill this court with love, light and compassion.’

Then I walked reluctantly, nervously, through the doors. The cameras again went ballistic. The judge as usual asked me if I was OK to start. Sharp pains twisted my gut. I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t go on. Not today.

‘I am really sick,’ I told him. It was a struggle to even get the words out. I was clutching my stomach, trying not to vomit, tears pouring down my cheeks. What had my life come to?

The judge adjourned court for a week, ordering me to see a doctor. ‘Take care of your health; don’t be stressed. If you are stressed, you might get diarrhoea.’

I nodded and was taken outside, the cameras all still clicking furiously.

All these days I’ve been vomiting, diarrhoea. Very tired, and sick. No energy. Constant tears. And Sonia going crazy each night.

Diary entry, 8 April 2005

Still vomiting, keep crying, no energy at all. How long can this go on for? I cannot stay feeling like this.

Diary entry, 9 April 2005

Still have the runs – my head is throbbing.

Diary entry, 13 April 2005

I couldn’t get better. The stress and pain of the looming day were always there. They wouldn’t lift. What if the prosecutors asked for death? I’d been living under the shadow of death for six months. Fear churned my stomach, making me throw up all the time. I was tight, tense, an emotional wreck. I had to get out of here. I had to go home. I didn’t do this; I didn’t deserve this. I didn’t understand this. This life was breaking me down.

That week I didn’t get to see a doctor, and there were the usual dramas. A guy called Eka escaped, was quickly caught and beaten by the guards. I watched as they dragged him past me in the visiting area and off to the isolation tower. He was so badly beaten that he went to court the next day half-paralysed, with a limp, a twitch and his head hanging to one side.

Then one day while I was sitting on my mattress in my cell, my cross broke. It simply snapped from around my neck. I felt it was a sign . . . a bad sign. I became hysterical. I’d been clinging to my sanity by a thread, but in that instant, I lost it. It undid me. I couldn’t speak. I was crying like a baby, making a lot of noise, gulping for air, just staring at my broken little cross. The girls in my cell were fussing around, trying to figure out what had suddenly happened to me. Then they saw the cross and all huddled over a girl as she frantically put it back together. The second it was fastened back around my neck, my hysteria instantly stopped. I didn’t understand myself. It was the weirdest and fastestchange in extreme emotion I’d ever experienced. I held so much faith in that little cross.

On the day before I went to court again, I got the fright of my life as I looked into the eyes of evil. I trembled for hours afterwards.

Yesterday had to go to the office to re-register – hate doing that. If I don’t sign, does that mean they are holding me here illegally? Before I entered the main office, two guys were coming out of another room on cruise control, just lingering outside the door. As I walked closer, one started to walk towards me. His face looked slightly familiar – could it be . . . ? No, it couldn’t be him: he always has his hat on. The guy behind him was taller and thin, glaring strangely at me. He was wearing the hat. Then as the first guy got closer to me, the one in the hat was looking, watching me; he flashed a smile.

My suspicion was confirmed – the man got so close, we would have brushed shoulders if I hadn’t moved sideways. He has eyes unlike anyone I’ve ever seen, and anyone I’d ever want to see again at such close range. They are very dark, but not black-coloured, and kind of hazy, like the colour has smudged into the whites: foggy black. Took me by surprise to see him there. I see him a lot – looking out of the cell window of the isolation tower, occasionally sitting with his visitors in the visitors’ room or in the office. To experience him so close and to be looking directly into each other’s eyes – it took a moment for my brain to register who he was. As he got just in front of me, an arm’s length away, he said, ‘Corrrby . . .’ Then he smiled.

Amrozi. He knows my name. He knows what I look like. Amrozi knows who I am. That’s a feeling I will never forget and never want to experience again.

Diary entry, 13 April 2005

The night before court I froze in fright as I was listening to the radio news. An anonymous letter had been sent to the Indonesian Consulate in Perth, saying that if I wasn’t set free by the prosecutors’ request, an Indonesian man who worked at the embassy would be shot dead. ‘All Indonesians out now! Go home, you animals.’ I was aghast. I felt so little, so powerless, as I was stuck in my cage listening to this. Everything was so out of control; this madness was just swirling crazily around me.

Death threats, and the envelope containing two bullets. This is so full on. How did my life get like this: so much violence and destruction? I’m stuck in the middle of something huge. How did this happen? I pray no Indonesians get angry at the threat and lash out at me. You know, lately I have been surrounded by a lot more police as I step off the sardine van. Before, I was accompanied by two police but lately it’s been six or seven. Could it be that someone wants to shoot me ahead of time? So, no sleep for me last night. My eyes are sore and dry; don’t even want to think what I’m looking like. Going to collect my water, wash my hair – much needed, well overdue – dress and off to court for the tenth time.

Diary entry, 14 April 2005

OK, I’m ready for the prosecutors’ closing. Got black pants, pink top. Let’s go. I am strong; I fear no evil.

Diary entry, 14 April 2005

What a dramatic day. I seemed to find new levels of fear with every week. Inside the sardine bus, I sat crying and shaking, more frightened than ever of being shot while walking into court after news of the death threats. I couldn’t stop my tears. I was traumatised. I didn’t want to get out. The girl I was hand cuffed to was calmly telling me not to worry. She had no idea of the terrifying minutes ahead. No idea! When she first saw all the media, she thought it was going to be great, like true celebrity movie-star status. But this was a drug trial, nothing glamorous about it.

As soon as we got out of the bus, she boldly walked in front of me. But it didn’t take long for her to yell out for help. She was being pulled along in a media rip, sucked down by the scrum, drowning. There were so many people everywhere, pushing and shoving. She certainly wasn’t smiling now. As she fell, my hand went down with her, the cuff cutting my wrist. I was fighting to stay upright. She was being stomped on. I couldn’t see ahead, I couldn’t even see the ground. Merc pushed her way through, swinging her handbag around blindly, like a crazy woman. But she wasn’t, she was my dear, sweet, protective big sister. The girl managed to get back up, walk for a bit but then fainted. It was madness. I was bawling like a big kid. I had never been so fearful, it was making me sick. Guards carried both of us through the mayhem into the holding cell. I didn’t even realise I’d been picked up until I was put down.

Soon I was walking back through the anarchy again to enter court. I’d never throughout this whole ordeal seen so many reporters and photographers. Between the judges and my seat there were about three or four long lines of them, all with their cameras flashing wildly. I tried to keep composed, tried to breathe easy, concentrating hard to keep the air moving through my lungs, but my head became very light. I was still concentrating when the light went out – I’d fainted.

I woke to the comforting voices of my translator Eka, Erwin and my sister, and still all the photographers were flashing their cameras. It was a circus. I was so embarrassed. This was my life.

I’m just so completely stressed: fear of the unknown, which gives me the diarrhoea and vomiting I’ve had for around three weeks now. All I need is something to calm my nerves for Thursdays. It’s the stampede of cameras and reporters that my nerves need to be calmed from. I do realise this is their job, they need to do it, without them Australians would be kept in the dark; and without the help and support of Australians, what would happen to me then? But I just wish they’d give me a little room to move, room to breathe. Each time I come back from court I have bruises on my legs and arms, my feet get trampled all over: even my big toenail was lifted up and bleeding.

Diary entry, 14 April 2005

The judge ordered a bench seat to be brought forward for me to lie on. My mum came to hold my hand and stroke my face. She was crying. The pain this was bringing to all the people that I love hurt so much. All around us the room was erupting.

The judge became angry, unable to bring order to his courtroom; the prosecutors yelled for the reporters to back off. I could hear my dad shouting for them to leave: ‘On your bike, leave her alone! Clear out!’ I asked Merc to tell Dad to be quiet. I didn’t want the judge to get even more upset.

The judge was telling me to stop pretending to be sick. When Eka translated, I closed my eyes, feeling exhausted but angry. I thought,
How about you put a little order in your courthouse? Look at this bloody mess, I can’t even breathe!

I was lying, shaking, on the bench, surrounded by media as the doctor was taking my blood pressure. It was sky high. The judge agreed with the court doctor that I should have a full medical check-up, saying, ‘Get her to the hospital, get her well for next week. Get her out of here now!’ He ordered the media to give me more space the next week and warned me: ‘You sit quietly – don’t make it up. If you make it up, we will force the court to go on.’ I collapsed again while walking out to the car.

My mum and dad were so upset, in so much pain, crying, devastated, sick with worry for me and starting to break down, too. They couldn’t bear to see me go through this. I was their baby and I was innocent. My dad cried the whole night and was so drained by it all that he couldn’t get out of bed the next day to come to see me. Wild horses couldn’t keep him away usually. But Dad was very sick. He’d just finished his hormone injections for bone cancer. He didn’t need this.

Merc was hurting deeply, too, sick with worry for me and upset about being splashed all over the news wildly swinging her handbag. It was so unfair. The very people who’d provokedher were turning it into a big news story. The media pack hadbeen trampling all over the woman I was cuffed to, oblivious toher as they blindly, bloodthirstily pursued their prey: me. Theyjust stomped all over her. They didn’t care. They had to get theirshots. Merc had leapt in to help, to get a bit of space for bothof us, trying to fend off the pack. She’d then helped a guard tocarry the girl to the holding cell. Merc said she was still out ofit when they got there, had sliced and bloody wrists from thecuffs, and footprints all over her black trousers. Both of us had our shoes torn off our feet. It was so typical of my beautiful, caring sister to help.

I waited all the next day to go to hospital, but it was four days before the prosecutors arrived to pick me up. The media knew about it before I did. As the front doors opened, I reeled back. My heart was pounding.
How did they know?

A huge pack of reporters and cameramen was outside, all scrambling for their cameras, all clamouring towards me. ‘Schapelle . . . Schapelle!’ I was crying, shaking; I didn’t want to go out. But I had no choice. I had to. I was mobbed.