50 Hours
By E. Marie Seltenrych
Copyright E Marie Seltenrych, 2010
(Owner of website: Aussieoibooks.com.au)
Published at Smashwords, 2010
Rev: 03.02.2011
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover design by E Marie Seltenrych, 2010
Also by E Marie Seltenrych published at Smashwords:
This is a NaNoWriMo Winner, 2010
Marie is the author of:
11 (eleven) ebook titles and 8 book titles.
Get more information on her website:
and in last pages of this ebook.
Dedication:
“This book is dedicated to people
imprisoned all over the world, especially
to those who have been framed, children,
and those who are suffering for their
faith.” Marie Seltenrych, 2010
“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were
in prison with them, as well as those who are
mistreated, since they also are only mortal.”
(Hebrews 13:3)ISV,2008
Chapter One:
00:00 hours:
Saturday, 23rd October, 10:00 am
Stinky, smelly, putrid! I’m sitting here in this dark, damp place somewhere in the outskirts of Denpasar. My ears are filled with the rumbling of thunder in the distance. I can feel little dribbles of perspiration rolling down my forehead and I try to brush them off. My hands are locked together and it proves quite a difficult maneuver. My nose is filled with fumes and I can barely breathe. A constant dripping sound fills my eardrums and I refuse to open my eyes to see what surrounds me. My heart is beating like a heavy drumbeat. What has happened? What did I do wrong? I keep asking myself over and over again? Tears stream down my face like trickling water over a rugged mountain, their journey unchartered and dangerous. All I can do is reflect on why I ever came to Bali for a well deserved break. As I sit and wait for my tears to well up and dry, I try to come to terms with what has happened, and why?
Reflections:
Back to 2005:
It all started with my sister, Annabelle, well with her husband, Albert. He ran off with a floozy a few years ago. At first I thought that she was Polish, but then I found out that she was a Pole dancer at a club in France somewhere, at a place called Minx Pony. I had heard about the Minx Pony. She did in fact abandon her Minx Pony job to join Albert Bright, who to me is very dim. Why she would link up with an old fogey is a mystery, but he was in the money quite a bit, shares, investments in property and businesses made him quite rich, very rich I think. I never discussed the ins and outs before the divorce. My sister mentioned several pies in which he had his fingers, including an international shipping company. Maybe he shared some of his private international information with the pole dancer from the Minx Pony? I know from watching a documentary about the Minx Pony that the women get a job for life and they are never touched by the men attending. I don’t understand how Albert Bright got his hands on her? Maybe he met at a cafe when he was on business? I remember back in 2005, when I was plotting my trip to see the UK: when I rang my sister from Australia he was away on some European business trip. Did he stop for a few days in Paris? Yes!
His downfall:
For years he had been cheating, that’s my view of his sordid character, but of course he was the absolute model of discretion and my sister was totally a believer in him; he was a convincing liar, until the day she found them in her bed. She had gone out to visit a friend who lives about half an hour away from where they lived. Half way there she returned home to pick up a book she promised her friend. She told me that when she came into the house by the back door and raced upstairs to get the book, she found Albert and Lubochka in the raw, in their marital bed. They tried to say it was an impulsive action, a mistake! After that she did her own investigations and found that he had been unfaithful to her for six months already with this woman. She even found that he put money into Lubochka’s account regularly, under various names. When she confronted him, he said that Lubochka’s family had urgent needs and he was trying to help her. I, for one, was relieved for Annabelle when the divorce finally settled, as this new family seemed to be draining everything dry. Lubochka Gogo, she called herself. Her real name was Lubochka Govnia, so my sister discovered on an envelope she found in the yard when she visited to sort out ‘International liaisons’ with Albert. When she appeared on the scene, he had umpteen trips to Europe. She found credit card payments for flights to Europe, France, Russia and Hungary. She was shell-shocked and has taken four years to get over it, if she ever will. Now she is at least trying. We were to have a beautiful, adventurous holiday, with nothing but soft breezes and silky sand for company.
What happened to Albert? He went to live in Budapest with Lubochka but soon returned to the UK, after the relationship dissolved, or the money was gone, whichever came first. He needed Annabelle, and not just her nice knickers, he wanted another slice of the assets they had divided. My sister has a canny knack of knowing how to make money grow through investments. She is also a typical Scot, frugal. She recycles everything, except her husband! He could see that he had lost the brains of his investment portfolio and he wanted to pick her brains a bit more. He sent her flowers, chocolates, but she would not budge. As I advised her: “Once in the lion’s den is enough to learn a lesson...” She seemed to take my advice. I think he would have used her and gone astray, double-dipping into the family’s coffers. In the divorce report he said that she had ‘nagged him continually’ the ultimate reason for a divorce! Did she have a reason to nag? He never asked the right questions and if they got back together he would soon be tired of her nagging, especially if someone hunting for a man came along with sweet lips. No, I still reckon she did the right thing, even though the children were all for him returning; that’s another story. I won’t bore you with it right now. He soon found another woman, within two months of returning to UK. That was Jane, ‘plain Jane was not a pain’ kind of woman, and she was more settled, with her own home and family, minus her husband, who had actually died. They are still together after four years, so maybe it will last? Good luck to them, that’s all I can say. As far as I know, he’s no longer in the International transport business, but I could be wrong.
Lubochka Gogo, I believe, did return to the Minx Pony, so maybe she was young, waiting for another unsuspecting old fogey to stop by, give him a wink, meet as a side dish and there go the goodies, and the inheritance! Away she goes again, trips abroad and family support and God only knows how many disasters she can make up in one season. In one way I think Albert had it coming. What has this to do with my being in a prison cell in Denpasar? Well, it has everything. If my sister and her husband had just continued in a happily ever after marriage, it is unlikely we would be meeting here. There is also another side to this story.
Our story:
James, my husband and I have been working hard in the bricks and mortar investment business for ten years and now it was time to reap its benefits. I have worked hard getting the investments, doing the accounting, sending in an ITWV form to the tax department every year, balancing the finances. Why did we get into the property market? Well, we attended a few seminars and decided to give it a go once we had paid off our home mortgage.
Now it can be a volatile market, but somehow it survives as a lucrative investment strategy, unless you end up with whopping big bills for drug smuggling, like me, which is now on my cards.
We feel that we should have been active in property investment earlier in our life, when everything was so cheap, because it has worked for us to a large extent, but we were too busy rearing our four children into adulthood, giving them every luxury their little minds desired, leaving ourselves without any fulfilled monetary goals and all that sort of thing. The big sacrifice for our kids, us being baby boomers: we had it in us to give and give until we were tattered and torn! Sounds like you? If you are a baby boomer you’ve got it, mate, you will succeed and if you fail it will be a successful failure. The question now is, will I fail this incarceration trial? I am determined to try and survive. I am reminded that nothing phases us baby boomers and we have become toughened over the years because we had to work, work, work. We know all about working for our living. I remember when I first started in a job, I was so scared that I might use one minute of my boss’s time for myself. It was something drilled into me. Why am I here now?
Birthday gift!
For my 50th birthday, James said I should go and see my sister. He though it was time for us to get together after five years apart. My sister and I decided to meet in Bali and have time out and also get away from normal surroundings. She had finished up her work in a child care centre at the end of last year and we just wanted to see one another again. It seemed like a great idea at the time. Now, I am totally sure it was the wrong decision. I had given up my full time work as a personal assistant to a Real Estate Manager just over six months ago. I used some of my superannuation to come to Bali. If I had stayed in work I would not be here. If she had stayed in the child care industry, we would not be here. All these ifs and buts are piling up against me now. I wish I had continued to work more than anything right now. I actually enjoyed my work, bossing people around, being important. Where are they now? Where are my buddies? At work! Making money, getting their super topped up. Work is good, certainly better than sitting in a Bali jail.
Work notions and generations:
Don’t mention the word, ‘work’ to the ‘X’ generation. They just love, I don’t know what, living it up in bed, sleeping their lives away, being wealthy at others’ expenses. Now ‘Gen Y’, and why it is Y? I am not sure, but the next letter is Z, so is that the end of this world as we know it? ‘Y’ generation thinks it’s normal to be ‘gay’, which is fine with me, because gays are unable to procreate and that should be the end of their progeny, or will they find a way to bring little munchkins into the world? That will not bother me, as I have noticed in every generation there is a defiance, a rebellion in the children. Every child has rebellion in him or her. Because of this, the pendulum will swing back and forth over the generations. Another reason for changes in every generation. Maybe our great grandparents would be compatible with our grandchildren? Their rebellion would meet right in the centre of the universal disarray, bringing peace and harmony.
Offspring rebellion and my advice please:
Even as I sit on this hard floor, sore and sweaty, I am convinced by my experience about offspring, or children we bear. They are born to make us suffer, that is, parents! Not every child, you say: well, maybe there are rare exceptions. Please tell me if you know of any child that is not rebellious? If we are honest we will find that old rebellious tiger within ourselves. I haven’t done the statistics, but I would say that there is possibly 99% rebellion in children. It certainly is obvious in my own progeny. In our own family every child owns a rebellious streak that they cling to with their bared teeth. In other words, they do not live up their parent’s expectations because they have their own dreams and ideas and if the parents want that particular dream they change the dream! It is reality. Only when people have their own children can they understand this phenomenon. It is awesome in most children, practically disturbing. If they are nice when they are little, obedient, cleaning up their toys, trying to behave, then beware, because they are likely to grow up into something we never in our wildest dreams, suspected. I can tell you that ‘Gen X’ will be sorely disappointed with their kids when they find out they are nearly all ‘gay’ because it’s simply the fad of the ‘Y’! That’s my long lived observer’s opinion. Now Gen Y gays might be surprised if they adopt or even if they have their own children, through IV technology or more advanced methods that I do not know about; because their children will turn straight! Yes, they will defy their parents and do the opposite to them. We will see how right I am. You ‘gays’ will find out that your children do not think like you, so don’t be surprised. Just let it go and get on with your own dreams. What will happen to the gay’s grandchildren? They will probably become gays again. Life is so fickle. I am just moving an inch to stop myself from getting piles from this hard floor. I don’t wish to sit on the dirty cushions around the wall in the darkest area. I might find a rat as well! If I don’t rant and think, I know I will die. There is something over there in the darkest corner and I am not game to find out what it is, but I heard muffled sounds. It could be a tiger for all I know. Are there tigers in Bali? I am not sure.
Back to reality:
I can hear voices coming closer. I keep my eyes shut. I refuse to be tarnished with accusations from heavy mouthed men in just as heavy uniforms. I have no idea what they are talking about, probably about me because I seem to be their target at the present, their little pet! They are speaking in a language that feels dangerous to my health at present and even to my life.
“Up, up,” I hear a loud command. My eyes are sticky and I feel like a criminal as I struggle to my feet. I wish I had worn my jeans, but unfortunately they just would not zip up when I tried them on back in Australia. I smile wryly as I think of enjoying Christmas pud and the damage it did to my wardrobe last year! I wish I was back there and made plans to visit Barcelona instead of Bali. Back to the full skirt. Typically I snag my heel in the hem of the skirt. I will need more clothes if I ever get out of this mess. A mess that I am not sure should be called a mess. It is more of a disastrously dangerous predicament. Am I an MI-5 agent or what? Can’t they tell I’m a peace loving, flower-child baby boomer who hates conflict and will do anything to foster peace?
04:00 hours:
I am confronted by a brown, shimmering face with a black moustache, the deepest brown eyes I have ever seen, and black eyebrows. ‘Gen X’ or ‘Y’, certainly not ‘BB’. New kid on the block? He is the best looking man I’ve seen today. He is speaking in English but I have no idea what he is saying. His English is more like a foreign language. It reminds me of my Charismatic Christian friends I know who speak in tongues. I have no idea what they are saying and I doubt if they know what they are saying half the time. One thing, it is definitely a language of sorts. But, this is English?
“Yes,” I say, just to appease the situation, before his eyes pop out of his head altogether. What have I said ‘yes’ to? Maybe it’s the death penalty. Oh, God help me, I scream inside my head. All my fancy thoughts about the world and peace have flown out the window of my soul. I am marched down a hallway, through a heavy door, armed with two soldiers, and into an air-conditioned room. Ah, this is more civilized, I am thinking. Maybe they have found out that I am not a criminal and I can go shopping! I must stay calm, positive, and never ever lose my sense of humour, that’s my resolve. I stand with my hands bound and wait. I take a deep breath of the fresh air conditioned air. Immediately I feel refreshed and that creepy feeling in my hair seems to be fading. Cold kills certain bugs and I have a few rambling through my hair. I ask to visit the ladies room and they agree. They release my handcuffs and ball and chain. What a relief in more ways than one. I see the bathroom has only one tiny window and give up on the idea of escaping. I return to the office. The guard replaces my chains and cuffs and goes outside the door on the far side of the room. I am alone. I catch a glimpse of a polished boot, not moving, so I know I am being guarded. What a pathetic little scene, a gray-haired woman [with disappearing red dye], a long skirt, flabby belly, runny eye makeup, one shoe, hands held with steel clamps [or whatever they make handcuffs with]. Being guarded by a man with boots so polished they could be used as a mirror and a body so toned that he could be in a Terminator movie. I giggle at my musings and the boot creaks. It is funny. What do they think I am going to do? Run away. I have no idea where I am. I have bad directional senses at any time, but when I have been taken by force from a bright, happy airport, with humming voices, into the back of a vehicle that has no windows and driven to a place that looks like a stage setting from a Ben Hur movie, I am totally lost.
When I arrived the floor was sticky, putrid, and I lost one of my shoes there. It simply got stuck and I just couldn’t see it when I tried to find it. How can a shoe disappear from sight in a room with walls? There is only one answer of course and I don’t even dare to say that to the guard, just in case he hits me with the butt of his rifle. I am a very cautious person by nature and I just do not like pain. I have a pain phobia. I hate pain and will do anything to avoid it. What I mean is, like having a toothache, the most horrible pain in the world as far as I am concerned. I would suffer in a dentist’s chair to get rid of it, and that’s even painful.
Pain and destiny:
How my mindset is wandering with thoughts of pain, as I try to wiggle my fingers to stop them from going numb. Will I lose my hands from this episode, before I lose my head? Pain. I have had a few teeth taken out over the last couple of years and the pain I went through before they were pulled into oblivion was totally too hard to bear. I think it was worse than having a child. I had one toothache for 48 hours. I plastered it with dissolved paracetamol and tried to sip with one corner of my mouth. It was totally unbearable. Even then I never touched drugs harder than paracetamol! I just could not find a dentist to help me. I was so desperate I contemplated tying a string around the tooth and pulling it out with a door. Unfortunately for me, I could not work out exactly which tooth was aching. My whole face was aching. Not only my face, but my head and my neck were crippling me with pain. When I had my children the pain was localized and the doctors and nurses that flocked around me in the hospital were wonderful. Soon I was in la la land and enjoying the urge to ‘push’ ‘push’ to help my little ‘scampi’ get birthed, four times over. What a moment when that baby was pulled out. Relief, joy, happiness, tears flowing down cheeks around me. Sensational. Has my life been about training to bear pain? Now my wrists are hurting, constantly throbbing with an insatiable ache that will not go away, will not give birth. Is this an echo of pain to come very soon? How horrible. I wish I was back in my old world, toothache and all.
Two men stand over me. What? Is one not enough for an old, flabby woman with no lipstick? I want to stick my tongue out at these official looking men but I just stare at them with a hint of sadness in my face. Maybe they have a bone of compassion somewhere inside their nearly trimmed moustaches and thick, straight eyebrows and puppy-dog eyes?
“I need an interpreter,” I say in the most authoritative voice I can muster. I am sick of trying to understand their gibberish and intimidation.
“You have,” one man says in reply, almost spitting in my eye. He is my interpretator, I see.
“I want someone else. You cannot speak proper English,” I reply. “ I have heard someone trying to speak English but they fail, miserably,” He looks into my tear-stained eyes with runny, stingy mascara making black grooves in my foundation and a trail of dirty creases in my otherwise flawless complexion.
“Rude,” he says at last after contemplating the words for what seemed like an age. He could have chewed a whole steak by the time he replied. I am at the mercy of this complete stranger and I feel intimidated.
“You cannot speak proper English,” I repeat. “I want my lawyer,” I add for emphasis. They can’t fool me. I watch Law and Order, Spooks, Waking the Dead, CSI Miami, and other criminal documentaries, especially Burn Notice! I always give them plenty of advice when I am watching TV. It seems totally different when one is right in this situation of danger. I do not feel brave, clever or able to do anything. I feel powerless. I am not sure how I might be able to pay for this Lawyer, if I can get one, that is? The problem is that they took my bag and it’s under scientific investigation. I still can’t believe what I’m going through right now. I feel as if I am the criminal in a play and suddenly the director will say, ‘cut’ and we can all go home. In my dreams!
“You want Lawyer?” is his reply. I look into his eyes. Black as the Ace of Spades, black and intriguing, sinister maybe. What if this is some kind of plot to kidnap me and get money from my darling workaholic husband, who spends his days shifting dirt, to give them $50,000 or more? Where on God’s earth would be get it at short notice? I feel annoyed at myself now, for getting up the Bendigo Bank manager one day. He probably wouldn’t want to give darling James a loan if he knew it was to release me from prison. I wish I had been so polite that I could be sure James might get a little loan to release me. Not that we are in trouble financially. We have investment property, worth a lot, but getting cash has always been a bugbear in this investment lurk. We have put everything into mortgages, mortgaged to the hilt and sometimes the income just wasn’t enough, and we scrimped and lived on a crumb to keep our bricks and mortar alive. Still, I must be careful not to mention that I own properties worth a lot of money, or bingo: they will want James to give them three million dollars. As if I’m worth three million? Maybe I’m worth more. But the problem is, if I am worth more and we can’t get the money, then I’m a dead chick?
“Yes. The best lawyer in Indonesia,” I command, holding back tears of frustration, anger. I hold my head very high, like an aristocrat. He’s waving his hands around and speaking in an Indonesian dialect to his comrades. I can hear the word ‘comrades’. I can detect a smirk on their faces.
“What name him?”
“What is his name?” I correct him. I have this awful habit of correcting people when they use incorrect grammar. It is not that I really care what grammar they use, but I just got into the habit at some point in my life. It’s absurd. Part of being a secretary in charge of a typing pool back in the old days of the typewriter! Now you know how old I am!
“That is right, what we say,” he replied. “What name?”
“How the hell should I know what his name is. I don’t know any lawyers in Indonesia. I came here for a holiday, not to be stuck in this filthy place,” I yell. He shakes his head, warning me not to get abusive. I take a deep breath. Tears sting my eyes.
“One phone call,” he says, handing me huge old black telephone with a cord on it. It must have been on the Ark, I am thinking as I try to hold it with my handcuffed hands and drop the thing. Fortunately it does not fall on the ground but dangles on its twisted cord. Can’t they see that I am handicapped with these metal bracelets.
“Take away,” I say, holding out my hands. “To make telephone call,” I add, using their pigeon English style. If I said ‘take away’ in Australia my husband would immediately phone Dominoes or Pizza hut.
“You can?” he asks me and turns to the two men waiting, holding onto their firing arm. I can feel the relief as my wrists are unlocked again. I have red bracelets around my wrists now. My watch has been removed and my jewellery. I hope they give it back or James will be onto them. I rub my wrists to get the circulation back.
“Go and ring the telephone call,” the man I nickname ‘Harry’ as I call him, says to me.
“Thank you.” I turn away from the men to dial the number and I feel a hand on my shoulder, like a hand of a bear, stiff, hurtful and strong. I whirl around and give him a nasty look with my eyes, you know, I squint, glare and toss my head in the air.
“Keep looking me,” he says.
“Hello,” I say into the phone, having dialed our home number. Pick it up, pick up the phone, James, I yell inside my head. Where is that man! He probably expects me to use my mobile phone, which is under investigation. Great!
“It’s making a funny sound,” I say. “No ring. Fun sound,” I explain to Harry. I believe there is something wrong with their connection, if they have one. Yeah! This is a farce.
“Back now,” he says, along with a mouthful of words to his comrades.
“But I haven’t had my telephone call. I am allowed one call, that’s the rule!” He just looks at me with his blank eyes. I try again, “No; make one call. No can do. Back, go back now,” he says, holding the cuffs out for me to be clamped in again. I resist for a moment, just the rebel in me, the fighting baby boomer! Who do these people think they are. Here I am, a menopausal woman, sweating beads all over and they put cuffs on me. I’ll probably end up with some terrible rash and get some infectious disease and die in this rotten prison. I lean on the wall for support, dropping myself to a sitting position on the floor. How do I find a lawyer? A phone book. Maybe they have a white pages here? I close my eyes. This must end soon. I cannot bear any more.
“Yuk,” I whisper. I feel all wet on my bottom. I didn’t know you could get up with handcuffs so quickly. I look down and there’s definitely something wet on the floor. And I don’t like the smell either. It is so dark in here, there’s no light, except for a tiny shaft coming from between the few bars in the door and when they shut the bars, well, even more darkness. How can anybody survive in such a place, I wonder as I stay standing up, leaning against the wall? There is a bed of some shape on the other side of the room, so I might shuffle over there. My feet are still chained; there is a little walking piece of chain so that I can shuffle along. I am reminded of orange clad prisoners in Guantanamo prison. How did anyone survive there for years, I wonder, thinking, how many were innocent and just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe that’s what happened to the Aussie who was kept there, tortured and barely made it back home? I shudder. Will I be tortured before they kill me, I wonder?
Chapter two:
06:00 hours
A rattle at the door takes my attention. A short, stocky man, with slicked down hair and a long coat appears at the bars. The guard opens the door and calls me out. The man waiting to see me has a clipboard and pen. He reminds me of Agatha Christie’s Perot, and I feel instantly at home with him. Is this my new lawyer?
“Ello,” he says, “you are Mrs O’Flannery?” I shuffle towards him. I cannot shake his outstretched hand because I have cuffs on. He ignores that fact.
“Yes, I am, Mr. Perot?” I reply and ask in the same mouthful. For a moment I wonder if this is all a big joke and someone is going to pop up and say, “Got ya,” and we laugh and laugh and I get to enjoy my holiday, long needed relaxing time on the beach, swinging in a hammock, sipping daiquiris, or whatever they sip here.
“I am Detective Commissioner Winarto. I have a complaint,” he begins, coming towards me, stopping a few feet away as if I am contaminated with a disease. “You have drugs,” he says.
I correct him quickly, “No, that is a lie. I admit, drugs were found in my possession. It’s not the same thing. I don’t have any drugs here, they took them away,” I add. He looks at me as though he’s absorbing my words like a hearty meal. “I gave a statement already.”
“I need you to tell me. I am in charge. You admit, you have drugs?” he says, after a breathless moment of waiting.
“Yes. I mean ‘no’. I had some. What I mean is, someone put drugs in my handbag when I wasn’t looking and then the policeman found them. The dog actually found them but he was with the policeman.” He looks at me again, and again as if finishing a meal, he absorbs my words.
“You must make true statement,” he says, holding out the clipboard with a piece of foolscap paper attached.
“Yes, that I had drugs in my bag, is that what you mean?”
“So, you admit now?”
“I do no such thing,” I reply. How can I get through to these men?
“So, what you do, eh?” he replies, writing something down on the clipboard that was still hanging in the air. “You have to write it now,” he instructs, his voice becoming edgy.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I am in chains and my hands are locked together,” I say, my voice rising and my temper right behind it.
“Okay,” he says, calling the guard to unlock me. I am set free again.
“No lies. No cheat,” Winarto says sternly, shaking his index finger at me.
“I do not cheat,” I blurt out. He steps back from me and looks up, surprised almost, as my hands are finally released. I think he thinks I am about to take a swipe at him. I take the clipboard and begin to write as though the pen is a drill. I write hard and fast and hand the clipboard back to him. He looks at the board, turns it on its side and makes a face that said, ‘This looks like rubbish’, something like that. I feel nervous. He has the power and I am the prisoner.
“Can you get me a lawyer, please.”
He is trying to read what I have written. Maybe he feels offended by something I wrote. He should, I think, because I am convicted as a criminal for doing nothing, well, for being vulnerable and stupid and not taking care of my handbag well enough. That is what I have written! I reflect back to my recent, free life: It all happened when I felt sick on the ’plane coming from Australia to Denpasar. I must have eaten something crook because that’s just how I felt when we landed. I felt pale, green and nauseous and I just couldn’t spew. It kept coming up in waves and returning, like a tsunami inside my gut and I was drowning inside for twenty minutes. When we landed, I vamoosed to the ladies bathroom.
“Hang on, give me that,” I say, almost taking the clipboard. I should be writing this down on the paper, not thinking it. What I had written had nothing to do with what happened on the ’plane from Australia. He pulls it well away from my grasp and that make me seethe with annoyance. Annoyance at myself for not taking the opportunity to write my story down and annoyance that he now will disallows me to write it. I should say ‘sorry’ but it just chokes in my throat like a piece of sticky phlegm.
“No. You wrote it,” he says. “You say not cheat.” He orders the guard to incarcerate my wrists again. I pull my hands away from him and say,
“I want to write my story. You said you want the truth. Now I will tell you everything. I promise,” I say, allowing my voice to become lower. I do not want this man to intimidate me any more than he has already done, or I will burst at the seams. He thinks about that for a moment and then shakes his head.
“You wrote. You had chance,” he says, giving the guard the nod to lock my hands together. He beckons to his two comrades who are standing by like those guards in the British Palace, numb, stiff and silent. I wonder if they are body guards just in case I cause trouble! What a laugh. He twists himself 180 degrees and marches away. The guards know their place obviously. Harry comes forward, my friend, Harry. He is most certainly superior in the film star department around here. I hold my hands out and then call out,
“Wait, Winarto. I want a lawyer, and my ’phone call,” I add, as I realize my time out is up. How would he feel if he was treated like me, cuffed, harassed and blamed, without any compassion. No wonder I can’t think straight. Winarto is long gone through to the air conditioned room, too far away to hear my call.
Harry says, “Go inside,” holding the door open. The second guard, the skinny one, pushes me inside the cell. I fall on the floor as the door is locked. I am sure I have broken my shoulder, or my frail hips. “Don’t you know, I’m menopausal, fragile,” I say quietly, but the door is already barred and Harry is gone to do some other chores. I roll over on the floor and cogitate on my state, staring at the black ceiling. A ceiling dripping with stalagmites that cannot stay there because of the humidity. I close my eyes and everything that happened just a few hours ago comes flooding into my mind. Surely this is a nightmare and any moment I will hear the ‘ding dong’ to ‘buckle up and get ready for landing’. I wonder if I have died in a ’plane crash and this is hell?
I’ll tell you what happened six hours ago, so that you are up to speed with my dilemma:
I had my bag with me when I visited the ladies room at the airport, in the arrival lounge. I felt really rotten and I know I looked green in the mirror. I had a hard time tying to keep something from erupting from the bowels of my stomach, but I kept breathing deeply, closing my eyes and just concentrating on a sign on the wall: It was in some language that look like a bunch of squiggles. I pretended I was a translator and tried to work out what it said. ‘Free tampons?’ No. ‘Do not flush pads down the toilet?’ No, too many words. ‘Watch out, criminals’? I just could not work out what it was. A woman came over, put something in a slot and took a package from the machine. I was tempted to ask her what it was, and then I had to rush into the toilet and my very expensive champagne, chicken a la crème and a soft dinner roll came tumbling out. It had a domino effect on my stomach, that kept heaving and heaving, bringing up my orange juice from much earlier. I came out of the little room, feeling washed out. I splashed my face at the funny little tap and it squirted water as if it was going out of style and suddenly stopped just when I placed my hands underneath. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said to the tap. I pressed it again and this time I was ready for the blast and quickly threw water over my mouth, neck and hands. I noticed my hands were shaking, as if I had been drinking, so I think I was in shock. It was probably at that point that I noticed a perfumed aroma passing by. It was the woman who had been sitting next to me on the ’plane. She didn’t seem to recognize me, probably because now she could see my bleeding lips with water running down all over my shirt and probably didn’t recognize me. I took some paper towel from a dispenser, and then I remembered my bag. I had a bit of a shock as I couldn’t think where I left it. It was not over my shoulder or on my arm. My heart fell ten storeys in one instant. It had all my personal belongings, purse, credit cards, shopping cards, boarding pass. Everything I needed, including my mobile ’phone, which caused me some strife going through the x-ray door as I call it. Just when I was about to shout “thief, my bag is gone”, I noticed a crouching black bag in the corner at the end of the sink and bench arrangement. I hoped it was mine. With my hands still trembling I reached for it. Why I felt guilty I cannot say, it was my handbag. It was black as night, with a long, folded strap that I could wear close to my body, lots of zippered compartments. There was one toilet with an engaged sign and some rustling of paper going on. I sneaked towards the bag, just in case it did belong to the person inside the locked cubicle. In case someone thought I was snitching a bag. I could not remember leaving it in that position, that was the mystery. I was confused or having a ‘senior moment’, which is not unusual these days. Just as I reached for the bag, the toilet door opened: I grabbed the black bag and rushed for the door. The lady, an older woman with blue hair and a stern expression, dressed in thundercloud grays, came in front of me, stopped in her tracks and just stared at me. I think she reached her hand out but I couldn’t be sure. I assumed that it was my imagination going awry.
As I left the ladies room, rushing as if I was in a dreadful hurry, my heart beating two to the nanosecond, I noticed one unzipped compartment in my bag. Immediately I thought that someone had stolen my purse. I looked in the front compartment and it was there. That was a relief. In another compartment there was something I did not recognize for an instant. A small plastic bag. When did I put tissues in here? I pulled the little packed out and suddenly I heard a rising commotion. I thought that my skirt had fallen around my legs, or worst still, my underpants had broken their elasticity at long last, and fallen down. I decided to wear my most comfortable undies for the trip and they were so comfy that I hardly knew I had them on, but they were the old fashioned type, cotton gusset and elasticized waist. I remembered a story told my an old friend of mine. She was walking down O’Connell Street in Dublin when she was suddenly halted. She looked and there on the ground, around her feet, were her crumpled undies. I asked her what she did. “I just stepped out of them, picked them up, put them into my handbag and walked on”, she told me. Now this could have happened to me. I looked down. It was a dog with long ears, getting very excited about my legs. “Go away doggie,” I said. A pair of boots stood next to the dog. The boots were black and solid looking, like working boots. My eye dragged itself from the wiggly eared doggy up the legs to a man with something in his hand. I could not be sure but it might have been a gun of some kind. It could have been a listening device but I wasn’t going to chance it. I could be shot for taking tissues from my bag? How weird. What if this was not my bag? Maybe that elderly blue haired woman in the cloudy gray three piece had friends in the police force and she told them I took her bag, but it was truly mine, except for these tissues! Tissues that could be drugs!
I am not joking but the next thing I did was lay down on the ground, with my hands above my head, just like at the gym, but without the mat. Not an easy thing for a big busted woman, but I seemed to have no choice. I kept saying, “What have I done?” But the words returning were very excited and in a very strange language with the halting sound in between words. The dog was getting very excited too and it was receiving a reward for doing a good job! Eventually I was allowed to get up. I was so stiff that I could hardly move. After I received the command to get up I just could not do so.
“Please help,” I whispered. Immediately a man came and helped me to my feet. I shook my head and thanked him, but he was soon my enemy. How a man can be an ally for an instant and the next instant be my enemy is beyond me. My hands were linked together and my feet were in chains.
“Tissues,” I said to people looking at me, as the rent-a-crowd gathered and two more armed policemen came rushing in, taking their captive. My hair was a mess, I knew that. My face was probably still greenish. I didn’t get a chance to renew my lipstick, so my makeup was runny and patchy. I must look like a circus, I had thought. All my life I had travelled with my darling, James, but once, only once, did I travel alone. It was now. What did they think, taking a grandmother in handcuffs somewhere, without a friend, a lawyer, a solicitor or a ’phone? I was truly alone and in desperate peril. I could feel it in my heart. I was almost blinded by a flash and I saw circles and spots for a few moments as I tried to move along, feeling like a blind woman. A grandmother, blind, sick, green, with messy makeup and tangled hair, her leg wet from the nose of a dog, without wallet or purse, being hauled to a waiting black car. Thank God, doggy didn’t bite me. It could have been much worse, I kept telling myself. At least they are not putting me into the back of a truck. I must say the car was a nice ride, a very fancy car. For an instant I felt like I was a royal family member visiting Denpasar, except that I couldn’t wave, or move, with a policeman on each side of me. I noticed there was a fixed grille between the back and front of the vehicle, so I think this must be used for very specific purposes, criminals no less. What did they think I would do, spit on them, kick them? I could not kick but I guess I could spit. I was completely flabbergasted that I could be arrested for finding tissues in my handbag, even if I forget how I put them there. What was the world coming to, I wondered as I was tossed back and forth in the darkness of that vehicle? It did nothing for my travel sickness, and even brought back memories of my very first vehicle ride. I tried to wipe the perspiration from my forehead by using by upper arm. Immediately I felt a poke of something hurtful in my ribs. I desisted and allowed the tumbling perspiration to keep on tumbling down my face, along my neck, followed by another and another. It is strange how old memories surface at the most inopportune moments: I was about three or so and we had walked to visit one of my mother’s friends who had a rather big house and a big yard that had a hillock, or maybe it was a dump. I am not sure. The people seemed a bit feral for today’s standards but it was a happy place and they had a tricycle. A rickety old tricycle. I had never ridden one before but I quickly adapted myself to its movement. I remember riding down that hillock, next to their house. For me it was a ramp of excitement. Maybe I was the first dump surfer? Well, I went down that dump ramp until I was exhausted and even then I wanted more. It was the most exciting day I had ever experienced in my long life of three and a bit years. Eventually I had to relinquish the tricycle as my mother and all her flock had to return home. The people must have been rich, because they had a van, one of the few around back in the 50’s in our little village. Most people got around by shanks mare, that is, on foot, or on a bicycle, so to ride in a van was something most unusual for us to do. The journey was not very far but I can remember it so well. I had a cosy seat on the hub that covers the wheel on the inside of the vehicle. I was so small that I sat on it and was tossed on and off the half circle seat so many times per minute. By the time we had reached our home, probably fifteen minutes ride, I was violently ill, and a great cause of concern for my mother. I can’t remember if any of my siblings were ill, but I sure was. That was my first van ride.
Now, like then, I felt like vomiting all over the guard’s elaborately decorated jacket, or the long barrel of his rifle held in the upright position. Before I could decide where to let it all go, we stopped and evacuated the van. I was pushed roughly along and just stumbled in the direction I was going. It was like the worst nightmare one could imagine. I was flung into this squalid room the the noisy iron door was closed and I was simply left here, with no explanation given, no contacts, no way of knowing what I had done wrong. It was a dreadful puzzle and I wished so many times that I had never come on this journey.
Now I have sealed my own fate by saying something in English that they don’t understand, because I don’t understand their English. It seems like a catch 22 sort of thing, lose if you say something, lose if you say nothing and just simply put, I am a loser!
I can feel something moving near my hair and I freeze. Now I possibly could face ten soldiers dressed in smart uniforms, with rifles, but when it comes to rats and mice, spiders and snakes, I just freak out. Why, I don’t know? Now my blood runs cold as I keep my eyes shut and think what it might be? Cockroaches are probably roaming around, looking for food. I take a deep breath and then regret it. The air is so putrid that it makes me feel nauseous again. Still, I can definitely feel something moving through my hair, and now I think I can feel a slight breeze, like a breathe of air. I wonder if this place has holes to let air in. I hope so as goosebumps ripple over my skin, starting on my feet, up my legs, trunk, neck, head, down my arms. I am as good as a corpse with fright. Steeling all my energies I decide to open my eyes. First I have to gain the courage to face whatever insect, animal or endangered species I was about to meet, nose to nose, eye to eye and breath to breath.
One, two, three, I count internally, and then I push my eyelids upwards, just a tiny bit. I can feel myself passing out as a face looks into mine. I think I am dead. This is some plot to kill me and now the blow should come thundering down on my chest, maybe my neck, head. I have seen many of the Spooks episodes and death comes swiftly to those who are a hindrance to others or who get caught up in some devious plot or who just are in the way of the villain’s progress in destroying our very existence, our world, our planet.
“Hello,” are you okay, Mate?”
I sit up. From one nightmare to another. “Hello,” I reply. “No, I’m not okay. Who are you, how did you get in here?”
“I could as you the same question,” comes the smart reply.
I swallow and try to sit up with the most excitement I have felt for hours. This stranger helps me to sit with my back against the wall. Even as I move backwards, every bone in my body aches. I wonder if she is the long dark hump I saw in the corner, that I thought was some sort of rubbish that someone had left there. She has been too quiet for comfort. Did she get in past me when I was thinking deeply. How did she do it? Was she the thing making eerie sounds earlier?
“Who are you?” I ask. She may be a spy for the Indonesian army for all I know. How did she stay so quiet for four hours?
“I’m Edna McDarling, from Sydney. Been here for a week now. Not a nice place but I think I can raise the bail. I just need to get contact with someone. It’ll all work out, I’m sure. What’s your name?”
“Bridget O’Flannery,” I reply, finding myself smiling, changing my mind about her. She is in here, with me. That is a fact. What is it about a greeting? Why do we smile when we greet a friend. But was she a friend? I don’t know, but she sure was right here with me, in my face. How could she be creepy in one instant and my buddy in the next?
“Excuse me but how did you get in here?”
“What do ya mean? I was sleeping over there when you landed here. First sleep in days. I was exhausted from being angry. I tell you. I wish I could have made you more welcome. They don’t even ask my permission, not that I mind a bit of company,” she adds.
“I’m not good company,” I quickly put her right. “I’m getting out of here. There’s been some misunderstanding. It all happened when I pulled a pack of tissues from my handbag...”
“No!” Her eyes had white in them and I could actually see them in this dark damp place. Eyes that were bright as a light.
“Yes,” I contradict her.
“That’s what happened to me,” she shakes her head.
“What do you mean?”
“Someone put a white packet in my handbag. I’m sure it was done by a man I was sitting next to on the flight, but I can’t be certain.”
“But the checks are so strict. How could it get past security checks?”
“I have no idea, just know that I was sprung after visiting the loo, coming out and I noticed the tissues in my bag. Honestly I could not for the life of me remember how they got there.”
“Don’t tell me. You took them out and suddenly a dog licked your leg?”
She stares at me. “No, someone pointed to me and then it was bingo, all the cops in this strange world were surrounding me, throwing me on the ground, touching me up for weapons or something.”
“Nearly the same as me.” I take a breath and think about this. Here we are, two victims of similar crimes. Surely this is evidence that we are innocent? We just stare into each others’ eyes, almost like a love affair but different. We were around the same age, English speaking coming from Australia, having found tissues in our handbags after visiting the loo, excuse me, ladies room. It was an unbelievable feeling of ‘genuine relationship’, I would call it. A moment in time when we were both together in something that we knew not what. A profound moment that made us aware that we were both convicted of a crime we never knew we committed; a moment when we vaguely understood that we could be executed together, a devastating thought.
“Look, I’ve been here for a week, well five days seems like a week, and I know the routine: they come about every two to four hours, take us to some other section and interrogate us, give us a telephone to ring someone, which never works, and then back to this smelly, dirty hole.” She pauses to catch her breath. “Do you know they don’t even supply toilet paper. I had to ask for some tissues, ironically!” She laughs and I join in. We feel a bit better after that.
“So, what’s going to happen to us now?” I ask, shivers running all over my frail menopausal body. I wasn’t sure if this was another hot flush or a stream of fear closing in on my soul.
“Well, you see,” she is suddenly whispering, although there is nobody in sight around this place. “You see, I learned a little bit of Indonesian a few years ago and I can understand some of the words since I’ve been listening.”
“What have they been saying?”
“Words, like, ‘woman’, drugs, looking for her, telephone, just words like that.”
“They understand English, well, sort of,” I add. “I’m always suspicious when people speak a different language in my presence.”
“Me too. That’s why I pretend I don’t understand a word they are saying. In that way I can listen when they have their own private conversations, find out things.”
“Sounds like a good idea. You will have to teach me the words you know, so we can find out more.”
“Good idea.” We are silent for a moment of reflection.
“Do they feed us?”
“A la carte,” she say, laughing. “Well, not quite, but I am supposed to be on a diet. I was diagnosed with diabetes, well, almost diabetes, just a month ago. I had to cut down on fatty and sugary foods, so this diet suits me, I think. That is, if I don’t die from food poisoning.”