The Easy Day Was Yesterday (34 page)

Sallie and I sat at Manish’s desk and she held my hands and told me to concentrate on what she was saying and to be strong. Fuck me, this couldn’t be good. I wanted to just pay it all off and die right there. ‘Okay, she began, ‘Siddiqui lied, the police report says that you crossed the border with malicious intent to cause harm to India.’

‘What? Fuck me!’

‘No wait, listen to me. Triparthy [my Magistrate] agrees that you are innocent and even said so in court, but his hands are tied and he has to acknowledge the police report. So he can’t turn a five-year maximum term into 20 days on the back of a report like this. Now we go to trial.’

‘Fuck me,’ I mumbled.

‘Listen, the other thing we are now doing, and this came from Triparthy, is to ask the Indian Home Secretary to write a letter authorising your release. Martin is now talking to the Australian High Commissioner who has come in from his day off to get the ball rolling with the Home Secretary. So you will go to court tomorrow and you will plead not guilty and then we’ll get you moved to the hospital.’

I was destroyed. I wanted Sallie to go and push things along with Martin, but I also wanted her to stay with me. Eventually she left and I returned to my cage. I just wanted to curl up and slip into a coma until all this was over, so I took half a sleeping pill and slept for the afternoon. I woke at 6.00 pm to the old man nagging me to have my bath. The old man had a worried look on his face as I stumbled into the courtyard suffering from the lingering effects of the sleeping pill. I had a quick wash then returned to my cage. The old man helped me put up my mosquito net and I took another full sleeping pill and settled in for the night. I just wanted to sleep until all this was over.

An hour later, just prior to lock-down, Manish woke me and told me to go to the administration building. I staggered and stumbled into the administration rooms and could feel the resistance of the sleeping pill in my system that needed another seven hours of sleep time. I was directed by Gaz to the Warden’s office. Gaz told me to be sick because a medical board was waiting to assess me. ‘Thanks, mate,’ and I immediately slumped a little further and, with the support of the sleepers, I was in my element and really had my wobbly boot on. When I entered the Warden’s office there were two doctors, the prison doctor and Bala waiting for me. I was only wearing shorts, T-shirt and thongs. When they asked what my complaint was, I told them I had terrible headaches and felt as though I was having a heart attack — I just made that up because I had to say something. I also mentioned the horrible fungal infections and ringworm that had recently appeared on my skin. They took my blood pressure, which was a perfect 110 over 70, and my pulse was 60 — bloody hard to fake those. Then they listened to my heart and said everything was normal. ‘No,’ I said, ‘listen again,’ which they did with me trying to force the end of the stethoscope into my heart and then moving the end over my heart trying to find a murmur somewhere. Again, they declared my heart was fine. This wasn’t going too well. I watched as they wrote and read words like ‘suffocation’, ‘anorexia’, ‘malnutrition’ and ‘fungal attacks’. It then occurred to me that this was probably a done deal and, thanks to outside influence, I was getting a report that supported Debu-San’s claim about me being on death’s door. They dragged out the old scales that I’d stood on when I’d first come to prison and had been processed by Gaz and Manish. Then I had weighed 97 kilograms but now weighed 86 kilograms. I’d lost 11 kilograms in 16 days. I knew I’d lost some weight, but didn’t think it was that much. Eleven kilograms in 16 days is a bloody good effort — they couldn’t even do that on
The Biggest Loser
show. I could have lost more if I’d decided to eat the local food because I was sure that came with a side order of typhoid — that would have been the rapid weight loss program. Those fat people should just spend a few weeks in an Indian prison, drink water and only eat five or six biscuits per day and sleep the rest of the time; easy stuff and better than all those manic work-outs with those two sadistic personal trainers.

They sent me back to the cage. When I left the administration building it was dark outside and the prisoners had been locked in for the night. As I staggered across the yard I wondered whether I had given them enough to be moved to the hospital. I decided a little more wouldn’t hurt so, when I walked over the only clean piece of concrete, I went down like a sack of shit. Obviously I had to find a spot where I wasn’t going to hurt myself, and a place that was ‘relatively’ clean, but it was a thing of beauty. As I hit the deck I slapped my hand on the concrete at about the same time as my head hit the cement; although I eased my head slowly to the ground over the last centimetre or so; I didn’t want to hurt myself after all. There was instant pandemonium. The prisoners in their cells were watching my late arrival, but when I went down they started yelling and screaming. I silently laughed as I could imagine they were saying stuff like, ‘the white boy has gone down,’ or ‘can someone help that dickhead who fell over,’ or ‘that was the worst fake fall I’ve ever seen.’

But there I was and this was how I got to be in this shit hole. Why me? Why is it that I was always the one in the middle of the drama — or the shit, as in this case? Buggered if I knew and I supposed it was all character-building stuff. But, frankly, my character had been built enough and I’d have been happy now to live a quiet life — well, maybe.

Within minutes a prisoner was there to help me up. I didn’t know where he had materialised from. He helped me up and I stumbled towards my cage and I think my helper ran away to raise the alarm. As I walked into the front section of my cage I looked for my helper but, again, I was on my own. I assumed that people would come, so positioned myself on the ground to make it look as though I’d collapsed once more. Again, within minutes people rushed into my cage and all started tripping over my semi-conscious body. I nearly started laughing and could only imagine what my mates would be saying — they would probably start kicking me. The prisoners helped me to my feet and to my mattress. Again, people ran away and I hoped that would be the end of it. It wasn’t. Manish and others ran into my cell and asked where it hurt. I moaned that I was very dizzy and had a shocking headache (which I really did) and my heart was racing. ‘Okay,’ Manish said, ‘we’ll get some medicine.’ Oh shit, what were they going to inject into me; had I gone too far? I’d seen the sick guys lined up at the office. The medic briefly examined each man before giving them all the same injection of something through the same syringe, although he usually changed the needle. I certainly wanted none of that. Manish returned and confirmed that my head ached. ‘Yes,’ I moaned, so he started rubbing some ointment onto my brow and temple area. About five seconds later I realised it was tiger balm and my head felt like someone was running a blow torch across my temples. Ah, fuck me, that was painful. I hoped they had some ointment for the damn burns this treatment was causing. Then Manish said, ‘where else does it hurt, Mr Paul?’

‘I’m fine now,’ I said, hoping they wouldn’t rub any more acid into my body.

‘No, you said your heart hurt as well, I remember.’ And he started rubbing the napalm balm on my chest. Holy shit it burnt. The pain was something else. They must have got this special tiger balm because I didn’t remember it being this bad. I hoped there was a burns unit at this hospital! But, surprisingly, the tiger balm actually worked and my headache miraculously disappeared within minutes — maybe they burnt the nerve endings. All I wanted to do was to slip into a coma and wake up in about three weeks. The sleeping pills were really fighting to be noticed and I struggled to control the urge to sleep, but I couldn’t because I had 10 people staring at me and mumbling to one another in Hindi. But then finally they all walked out and I was able to rest. Within five minutes Manish was back and he had to wake me.

‘Mr Paul, you must come.’

‘Oh God, what now?’

‘There are people to see you.’

‘Okay, let’s go.’ Now who could this be at this time of night? I wondered. You’d think they would have called first! My house is a mess!

Those sleeping pills were really getting pissed off with me and they fought to keep me asleep as I staggered with Manish to the administration building. Manish stared at me and I could see him wondering whether I was still faking it or whether I was genuinely dying. As I meandered into the Warden’s office I saw Bala and the prison doctor. Bala grabbed hold of my arm and led me to a chair.

‘Paul, I heard you collapsed, are you all right? What’s wrong?’

‘Thank you for coming, Bala, it’s very kind of you. I’m okay. I just have a terrible headache, I’m dizzy and there is a pain in my heart.’

‘I will have you moved to the hospital tomorrow. Can you make it until then?

‘I’ll be fine Bala. Thanks so much for your kindness.’

‘Do you need anything tonight?’ he asked, with a concerned look on his face.

Suddenly I thought of the people I missed. I thought of my three children and how much I missed them and wanted to be with them. I thought about my dad and my desperation to make it home before he died. I thought of my brothers and my mother, and I thought of poor Sallie.

‘I want to go home now, Bala. This nonsense has gone on for long enough,’ I said, barely containing my anger. I wanted to smash something. I wanted to get the angry man at the border and bash him senseless. I really wanted to hurt that low life piece of shit. I made a silent vow; if I’m not at home to see my dad before he dies, I’m going to make the angry man pay, and pay severely.

‘Yes I know,’ he said, putting his hands on my shoulders. ‘We’re doing all we can and tomorrow you will go to court and plead not guilty. The right person has given me this advice. So ensure you plead not guilty. If you plead guilty he will have no choice but to convict you and you will get months not days. But the Magistrate won’t tell me what the sentence will be so you must plead not guilty. Okay?’

‘Thanks Bala, I will because I
am
not guilty.’

‘Okay, I will go now,’ he said as he stood and shook my hand.

I stumbled my way back to bed realising that the God-awful headache had returned. I pulled my light bulb out, but the guards told me to leave it in. I didn’t argue. I just crawled under the mosquito net, pulled my sheet over me and slipped into a coma.

After about four hours of dead sleep, I woke looking directly into the sun. I was confused. The sleeping pills were destroying my ability to think logically. How was the sun in my cage? How did I sleep past Ugly unlocking my cage? No, it wasn’t the sun, it couldn’t be. Bloody guards were shining a torch in my eyes. I then woke every 30 minutes when the guards entertained themselves by waking me. Maybe this would be my last night in the toilet? They kept talking about moving me to the hospital tomorrow; or was it today now? Yep, today, but who could tell; there was always something thrown in the way, and I was tired of getting my hopes up only to be continuously disappointed.

Tuesday 10 June

I had only been acting, but it had been made easier by the fact that I felt bloody terrible. The headache was a shocker — it would have killed a lesser man. I was covered in spots where the fleas and other insects had feasted on my body. I had bite marks on my feet from the rats. I had ringworm or some other fungal infection growing around my groin. My ear ached and I think something had crawled inside and died. When I used the cotton buds Sallie brought me, the yield was black and messy. I felt very weak after living predominately on biscuits and water for 16 days. I think the only reason I could keep up the sit-ups and push-ups was because I got lighter every day so they became easier.

I decided not to rush the morning and to walk with Satya as it might be my last opportunity. But we didn’t walk for long as I was supposed to be dying. The old man prepared my morning bucket bath and then I shaved for the third time in prison. I put on my jeans and black Rivers T-shirt and then packed those items I wanted to keep; everything else I left. Optimistic, I suppose, but all I had was hope.

At 7.30 am my name was called and I crept to the administration building where I was forced to sit. I wondered how getting to court would go today as I wanted to walk, but couldn’t because I was supposed to be on death’s door. I accepted that I’d just have to go in the cattle truck today with the other guys. I got up to board the truck with everyone else, but was told to sit. When all the prisoners were on the truck, I was escorted to the passenger seat next to the driver. The other prisoners must have bloody hated me for my special treatment and I wondered how much longer they’d accept it. I decided I would refuse any special treatment if the Magistrate sentenced me to a few months in the cage. At court I took my usual seat in the police station and bought chai for all the police from the tea boy. Sallie, Martin and Rajeesh arrived about an hour later, but Sallie was quickly whisked away to do an interview for Indian TV.

At 10.30 am I was called into court and escorted by a policeman to the first real court I’d been to in India. The Magistrate (Triparthy) sat at his bench, the gallery was full and I was told to stand behind a wooden rail at the back of the courtroom. Eventually I heard the Magistrate say my name, my dad’s name and then ask me to plead. I remained in my position with my head bowed, leaning on the railing for support. I could sense the whole courtroom looking at me for a response, but I didn’t move. It seemed like an eternity and I wondered how long I could keep this up. Finally, Debu-San approached me and touched my arm. He told me to be strong and to plead guilty or not guilty. I looked up and saw everyone looking at me, including Triparthy. I then said, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’ That was good enough for Triparthy who nodded to the police to remove me from the courtroom. I was led back to the police station with Sallie and Martin trailing behind.

The police made available our two seats in their court office and again we sat and waited. Sallie could barely contain herself. She said my acting was bloody awful and she had nearly burst out laughing as the whole court had turned to look at me when I hadn’t answered.