The Easy Day Was Yesterday (8 page)

I gave that some thought and asked Ujwal to read the statement and confirm that it read exactly as it should. Ujwal told me that it did, so I wrote the agreed words and signed the statement.

I still believed this would end and I would make my flight to the next course at 1.00 pm. In hindsight I realise that I was the only one who believed this. I’m pretty sure those around me knew what was coming but decided not to tell me. I’m glad they didn’t. After an hour or so, Ujwal and the others walked away to chat and it was just the Sub-Inspector and me at the table. I leaned over and asked for the Sub-Inspector’s support and told him I just wanted to finish the job I came here to do and then go home to my kids and Sallie. I reminded him that I’d done everything that had been asked of me and that he had told me many times yesterday that all would be okay. The Sub-Inspector looked me in the eye and said sincerely, ‘Mister, I will support you with all my heart. This is all wrong, and I will do all I can to help you.’ I hoped that would be enough, but I couldn’t ask for more from him.

The Sub-Inspector asked if I’d like to take a shower.

‘Yes,’ I said, thinking that I had better spruce up a bit for court.

‘Okay, wait and we will prepare it,’ he said.

I wasn’t really sure what all that meant, so I just sat there until told to do otherwise. Ten minutes later, Ujwal gave me a plastic bag that contained a towel, a pair of massive boxer-style underpants, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb and this bizarre piece of thin metal that looked like half of a paper binder — the type of binder where one flat half slides over the two metal ends that have been pushed through the holes in the paper. I soon discovered that the strange device was a tongue scraper! Why they thought I needed a tongue scraper was beyond me. I asked Ujwal what the story was and he told me it was a common Indian bathroom item.

Ujwal directed me to the shower which turned out to be an old-fashioned water pump out in the open for all to see, and when the big white man had a wash everyone came to look. Ujwal told me how the shower routine was to work. I wrapped a sarong around me, pulled down my jeans, took off my shirt and, in my underwear and sarong, I poured water over my head and washed 24 hours of sweat off. When I was done, I dried myself as best I could with a wet sarong and underpants on. I then removed my jocks and pulled on the massive new jocks and got dressed. Bloody hell, what a drama — a shower would be easier and, by the time I was dressed, I would be covered in sweat and need another wash. This is shit, I thought. I wanted to strangle that old prick at the border for fucking me around like this. I should have had a nice sleep-in this morning followed by a lazy walk around town before going to the airport to fly west for another training course. Bastard!

Again I called the High Commission guy to keep him updated. He asked if I’d like them to find me a lawyer. I agreed, but they rang back and said I was too remote and they couldn’t find one nearby. They also needed me to confirm who they could pass information to. I gave them Sallie’s details. I also spoke to Sallie to tell her the latest and sent her my son Sam’s contact number in case I was going to gaol. Sallie told me to stop being so dramatic. I hoped I was being dramatic, but I had an uneasy feeling. I also sent her my brother Trevor’s cell number just in case. Again, Sallie gave me the standard reassurance that I’d normally give people in sticky situations like this. So I wasn’t sure if she actually believed what she said, although I thought she probably did.

By now my cell phone was almost flat, so I asked the Inspector if he had a charger for my hardened Nokia. The good news was that he did and lent it to me. The bad news was that there was still no power, so the charger was useless. So I decided to turn my phone off until after court to preserve the battery.

The same police jeep that was used to take me back to the hotel last night pulled up, driven by the same old police sergeant. The Inspector motioned for me to get into the jeep. I grabbed my plastic bag of worldly possessions, including my new tongue scraper, and slipped into the back seat. The jeep was pure vintage and looked to be straight out of an old World War II movie. It had no doors, a canvas roof and bugger all room in the back seat. The Inspector jumped in the front seat and turned, handing me a lunch box full of sandwiches. Ujwal sat next to me looking very glum as I started munching on a sandwich.

The small compass on my G Shock (watch) told me we were heading south and, while we crossed the railway line several times, we generally followed it the whole way to the courthouse in Araria. I wanted to know where I was going in case I needed to make my way back to the border. I just had a feeling that this wasn’t going to work out too well, so I needed that back-up plan. Always have an escape plan … I could still hear myself telling my students that yesterday. The railway line ran conveniently north–south. If the opportunity presented, all I had to do was to parallel the line north and I’d get to the Nepali border.

We only drove about 40 kilometres, but the roads were absolute shit. The potholes were so big that it sometimes took a few minutes to drive out of them. I was absolutely knackered, but even if I could have slept, the seats were uncomfortable and the continuous bouncing would have had me pissing blood by the end of the day.

We arrived at Araria courthouse at 10.30. The place looked terrible. It was very poor, crowded, run down and filthy. Everyone stared and pointed at the white man in the police vehicle. The Inspector led me into an overcrowded administration room and pushed me into the corner telling me not to move. One policeman stood outside the crowded room to ensure I wouldn’t escape. The clerks all looked at me with disdain from behind their desks which they clearly assumed gave them some sort of power. I suppose in this case it did. I noticed folders and papers being placed in front of them and also noticed the only folders and papers receiving any attention had money discreetly attached to them.

The Inspector brought an old bloke to me and introduced him as my court-appointed lawyer. God help me. This guy had to be 50 years old. His teeth were badly stained with red betel nut juice. His white collar was severely sweat stained and his breath made me feel faint. But apparently he was the best, so I was grateful to the Inspector. My new lawyer, Mr Debu-San, told me I’d meet the Magistrate then have a bail hearing tomorrow. At that time it didn’t occur to me that I’d spend the night in gaol.

‘What?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, this can’t be right. I’ve got a plane to catch in a few hours and work to do tomorrow.’

‘This is not possible,’ said Debu-San. ‘This is the system.’

Ujwal just looked at me with blank eyes and I sensed he already knew this but had kept it from me — probably not a bad idea.

My lawyer disappeared just as the Inspector took me to front the Magistrate. I expected to walk into a courtroom and see the magistrate at the bench, but instead I was taken to the Magistrate’s office. The Magistrate’s office was unbelievably small — about 1.5 x 1.5 metres and made even smaller by a bookshelf on one wall supporting old, tattered law manuals that appeared to be holding more mould than law. It was dark and miserable and I could see by the scowl on the Magistrate’s face that the office had a pretty ordinary effect on him too. Well, I hoped it was the office that gave him the shits and not my presence. The Inspector spoke to the Magistrate in Hindi for a minute or so and, when he finished, Ujwal came into the already overcrowded room only to be told to get out by the Magistrate. The Magistrate was Mr Triparthy and he was the senior man in the Araria court. Triparthy stared at me for a while and then said, ‘Well, what’s your story?’ with a tone that said, I’ve heard them all, now what bullshit will you come up with?

Fuck you, you dried up old has-been, I thought, and then launched into my rehearsed speech.

‘Well, Sir, I took a rickshaw ride with my Nepali friend to look at the border between India and Nepal when my rickshaw driver accidently rode across the border. As you may know, Sir, the border is very open and crowded with people and shops, so I didn’t even see something marking the border. I had no intention of crossing the border, but the rickshaw driver didn’t know that the border is only open for Indians and Nepali and not foreigners. This was an honest mistake. I barely crossed the border and didn’t even get as far as the immigration office. I have the support of the Nepali senior police who have agreed to accept me back into Nepal if you would be kind enough to release me.’

Triparthy continued to read the police report for a few more minutes without saying anything, while I stood in front of him like a school kid shitting himself in front of the Headmaster’s desk. Then he said, ‘Well your story is unbelievable and I have no choice but to wait for the police report from the Superintendant of Police. You will have to be remanded until this is completed.’

Oh shit, that didn’t sound too good.

‘No, Sir,’ I said in disbelief, ‘I can’t do that. I have work to complete and need to be on a plane in a few hours. I can’t stay here, surely this can be dealt with now — it was a simple mistake.’ Now I was pleading. I didn’t want to be remanded anywhere.

‘My hands are tied and now that you are here I must follow the law. The best thing for you to do is to get your High Commission to talk to the Home Office Secretary who can order your release.’

He then motioned for the Inspector to remove me.

As the Inspector and I walked back through the staring throng of people, Ujwal rushed to me to ask what had happened.

‘The Magistrate thinks I’m a liar, so I have to go to prison,’ I replied in a tired and ‘I’m over this shit’ kind of tone.

‘Oh,’ said Ujwal and, although I waited for him say more, he didn’t.

The Inspector told me I could keep my cell phone until we got to the gaol and then I would have to give it to Ujwal. He told me that, in all other cases, the phone would have been removed when I arrived at the police station, so I was grateful. I asked if I could charge it somewhere as it was nearly flat and I needed to call the High Commission and Sallie. We got back into the car and drove to the police station. All the young police jumped to their feet and one raced off to find a charger in response to the Inspector’s demand. When it arrived, I plugged it into the nearest power point and had to move it around the get a flow of power through the line. This was getting a little tough. Finally it worked and I quickly made a call to Sallie.

‘Hi there, how did it go?’ she said in a very upbeat way, clearly expecting to say, ‘I told you so.’

‘They don’t believe me and I have to go to gaol,’ I said.

‘That’s fucking ridiculous, did you tell them it was a mistake?’

‘They don’t believe me so I have to go to gaol,’ I repeated. ‘I’ll call the High Commission and tell them, but the Magistrate said that the High Commissioner should contact the Home Office Secretary to ask that I be released.’

‘Okay, I’ll push for that from here as well. Keep your chin up and we’ll fix this.’

I hated the idea that others had to fix my mess.

‘I will. Don’t tell the kids, okay?’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

‘Bye.’

‘Bye.’

I called the High Commission and told them what I needed them to do. The representative said they were sending someone to assist in securing my release. He also told me — once again — that the Australian government could only ensure that I was treated fairly and no different to others in custody. They could not interfere or try to persuade a foreign government and had to let justice take its course. Damn, I thought, but fair enough. I handed the phone over to Ujwal and told him to keep it on and pass on any messages when he could. The phone was my link to the world of help and losing it meant I no longer had any control over my destiny. I was now in the hands of others and that made me uncomfortable and miserable.

We all got back into the police car for the drive to the gaol, but it was only next door. Bugger. Having a police station full of cops right next to the prison was going to make any escape attempt a little interesting. The prison was a shock to all my senses. I’d visited plenty of gaols before, including some pretty rough gaols in Iraq; but visiting was interesting, being sent to live in one was a nightmare in the making.

We pulled up outside the prison and a guard opened the gates to let the old police jeep in. The prison wasn’t what you’d imagine; it wasn’t surrounded by double chain link walls topped with razor wire. The guards weren’t standing in towers with assault rifles. The guard was standing in a roughly made corrugated iron shelter and carried an old .303 blot action rifle. Through the gates of the prison there were people everywhere crowding a small concrete building with a wire mesh around the front. There were people at the barred windows yelling at people inside and the people inside doing the same back. I don’t know how they could’ve heard anything as they all competed to be heard over the people around them. The Inspector and the other police with us pushed and shoved people out of the way so we could access an old gate to enter a single-storey building that looked more like a hut.

Once through the crowds of visitors, the inside of the administration building was dark, filthy, smelly and crowded. The Inspector cleared a path through the people who momentarily stopped their loud chattering and stared at me as I was ushered through a series of very small rooms into the Warden’s office. The administration building was shaped like a long, narrow rectangle and consisted of four rooms next to one another, each measuring about three metres square. The first room was the entry room into the prison, the next was the clerk’s room; next to that was the Warden’s assistant’s office and then the Warden’s office. The walls were once white, but were now filthy with tobacco spit stains and dust. The place was dark and depressing. I followed the Inspector into the Warden’s office and, assuming an introduction would take place, I thrust out my hand to shake hands with the Warden. He looked at my hand and clearly wasn’t in the habit of shaking hands with prisoners. Reluctantly, he took my hand and gently shook it, while directing me to a chair next to the Inspector.