Laura Denfer: 1. (Prison)

By Anne-Marie Bernard

My books are modern cloak-and-dagger adventures, really. Although, considering ongoing sensitive events, setting them up in North Korea was probably not such a good idea.
Still, as a potter, I favour Korean ceramics above all.
So I write about a French-Korean heroine who sets out with the idea to save her country from becoming a major battlefield. Things go wrong, and she is imprisoned for espionage. Unable to confess to her true actions, she keeps quiet and survives hell until, at the end of the first chapter, shes rescued by British marines.
They still do sail the world, dont they?
Throughout the book the pace is fast, with many twists and turns. I write about places Ive visited and characters I would have liked to meet (though not the villains), with events that tend to blow up in ones face due to accidental twists of words or a mere hesitation. To my own surprise, I am on my fourth book already, with the hard core of the main characters still with me, and Im having fun daily.
Hope you will too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467892940

Anne-Marie Bernard

About ten years ago, in the millennium year to be exact, I decided on a few things: I put my full-time job in the financial sector on hold, put my name down for an art course in ceramics, and confiscated an old laptop that was lying about in the house. With a husband working abroad and two daughters at university, I started to write in the evenings, having previously done only the occasional dabble in local cultural journalism. Without a second thought, I started writing in English. Why? As an avid reader, I’d seen my Flemish language become increasingly dominated over the years by Dutch influences, the translations alien and grating on my ears. Consequently, I’d turned to reading English full time from the seventies onward. And as our esteemed linguistic professors continued to issue one incomprehensible grammatical rule after another, only very dedicated students – with the exception of those few professors – knew how to write correctly as a result. Besides, most of our musicians write their lyrics in English – so what? It’s one form of globalization I am in favour of.

Book preview

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About The Author

About The Book

CHAPTER 1

The eyes.

The first thing I noticed were the light eyes as I sank down with difficulty in a free space.

Each day it was a recurrent struggle to find a decent place to sit amidst sixty other inmates. If one was late, one had to stand during the whole seventy-two minutes, which happened to be the exact time we were allotted out of our cells every twenty-four hours. Of course, the prison yard was large enough, but it pleased the guards at every occasion to round us up like cattle and pack us into a corner in order to make our lives miserable, even during recreation time.

And although there were with so many of us, one could hear a pin drop during the whole break, as it was forbidden to talk or whisper in fact, to make any noise at all. Even a random cough could set off a bad moment. So every day we fought a silent battle between ourselves for a moment of sunshine. The first one out had a natural advantage if he or she was still strong enough to resist the pushes and shoves of the others. I seldom sat in the sun these days. I was at the end of my rope and more than happy to sit just anywhere, as long as I was left in peace.

He had to be new, I thought.

He sat in the sun with no one contesting his place.

Strange, as even in this abomination of a place, foreigners got treated the same as on the outside: with open contempt. He looked European and military, standing out like a sore thumb in a sea of dark-eyed Koreans.

I was partly European too: half Korean, half French. That said, I barely resembled a human being. Tall, stooped, underfed, and bald, I looked sixty-three but was only thirty-six.

The only thing we were allowed to do during playtime was to exchange places with each other, which we managed quite well despite the enforced silence. We made eye contact, raised eyebrows as a question mark, pouted in doubt, and frowned in negation. When two prisoners came to an understanding, they traded places. As a result there was a constant shuffle on the go like a bizarre ballet. Newcomers soon followed the drill, craving the furtive handshake that was given each time an exchange took place. It was the only social contact possible within these horrid walls.

I was freshly dismissed from the prison ward after an unexpected timeout caused by an overzealous interrogation session, and I was still a mess. During their latest questioning, one of the new baboons had keenly overcharged the voltage and had put me into cardiac arrest. This hadn’t been according to the general plan, because they wanted me alive and talking, not dead and silent forever. Although I was long past caring whether I was dead or alive, I hoped the man was given the sack for his incompetence. Still, they always found new recruits who were willing to torture people. I often wondered where they kept getting them from.

Unannounced, as usual, two guards had barged into the ward moments ago to drag me from my hospital bed. The doctor in charge had tried to protest, but as he was new on the job and very young, he was soon cowering against their excessive brutality. Since I was a fervent adept at passive resistance, they had a hard time getting a proper hold on my limp body, and disgusted with my total lack of cooperation, they had dumped me unceremoniously on top of the group in the yard. The new prison outfit I had received at the beginning of my admission hadn’t lived up to the strain: they had thorn off a sleeve, and several buttons had popped off the jacket. It had been a while since I’d worried about a proper dress code; I simply dusted myself down and knotted together the flaps of the flimsy jacket, pleased for small favours for once. In throwing me down, the guards had inadvertently created a gap for me to sit in.

The light eyes kept watching me. They were grey.

Sung So-lee got up from his place in the sun and meandered over with care between the many bodies, which meant I was granted five minutes of sunshine, a second windfall at such short notice. I cringed in anticipation.

Lee was new too. I was much distressed to see him in this place but careful not to show it. He was a university professor in economics and an active member of the illegal opposition party. We had first met in 1986 when he had started dating Annette, my best friend since childhood. Over the years he had made it his personal quest to transfer the most promising students to universities abroad on foreign grants. The government had started to frown upon the practice, since not a lot of these young people were wild on the prospect of returning home after graduation.

Over the years he had built up an extensive system of contacts and escape routes that occasionally served other purposes. I had used his network in February 2002 to enter North Korea illegally, planning to use the same route in reverse after a few months. Obviously something had gone wrong, since I had ended up in this hellhole.

Grey Eyes turned his head, leaning with his back against a wall. He had one leg stretched out and the other one bent at the knee, supporting an arm. He could as well have been sitting on a beach. His hair was pitch black. So mine had been until a couple of months ago.

Interrogation methods changed regularly. Eager to please, prison staff saw to it that the sessions never bored. A favourite of theirs was the bathtub; this had enough variations to keep going for days. Hot water was a treat at the start, but that tended to cool down rather quickly, with all the squirming and splashing. When the water was too hot, prisoners got burned. Since burns were slow to heal, confession rate suffered. The warden frowned upon that. Cold water was easy and economical – the colder the merrier – with lots of issues to deal with in the meantime: resisting the increasing pressure on the lungs or fighting the restraints while praying one’s head wouldn’t explode. So one regenerated a lot of body heat during the process and didn’t mind the cold much. Soon one didn’t mind anything any longer.

Unfortunately they usually stopped in time. They had a sixth sense for it.

Oh yes, my hair.

During one particularly long bathtub session, they had ripped out lots of it. I was already severely undernourished at the time. The prison doctor had stitched up the skin and shaved off the rest to stop them from trying again, and it had refused to grow back. In consequence, they had put a leash round my throat the next time, to get a grip, but that didn’t go down well on the vocal cords. I couldn’t make a sound for days. They started wondering why I wasn’t screaming: excellent on theirs ears, no doubt, but far less entertaining. So next they pinned my head to the ground, pinched my nose, and poured water in my face with a hose. All this was good for nothing, since I had nothing to say. I simply endured their treatment as best I could until I passed out, waking up either in my cell or in their pitiful clinic.

I was a regular visitor to that ward; it had quickly become my second home after my private cell. Their illustrious medical facility was a single room of eight by six meters, with thick stone walls, as the walls of a sickbay ought to be: strong, grey, and depressingly cold. There were eight beds, four on each side, made of crude wooden planks and covered with two coarse grey blankets with red trim, donated by the Red Cross. In the cold season one got an extra blanket. No pillow, no teddy bear. If the ward was full, one was simply put on the stone floor.

There was one medical cabinet with some drugs, when there were any, and one chair was set against the wall. A small separation in a corner served as a living quarters for the medical staff, of which there was usually just the one. It had a single trellised window set high in the stone wall, which never caught the sun.

Eternal gloom!

The pain and suffering from generations of abused, tortured people were embedded in those miserable walls.

The deceased were sometimes left for hours before they were taken out by their fellow prisoners and dropped in a nearby gorge. They brought the blankets back to be reused immediately. The dead weren’t even allowed a decent grave.

The first medic I encountered had obtained his university degree some twenty-five years ago. He had been given a cabinet by the government in the city hospital but had also opened a small private practice in his wife’s village. They had lived there quietly with their two boys. I knew all this because he had looked after the staff at the French embassy; he was a decent, respected man who had administered to the rich as well as the poor. He had been put in jail after being denounced for treating a student who had been shot during a forbidden political revolt. Normally, he would have been released after five years of incarceration, but it was hard to find decent personnel in this place, so he had been persuaded to stay on. Afraid for the safety of his wife and kids, he did not put up much of a fight. He saw daily what they were capable of. It was a setback that he was such a good doctor and pulled many of us through time and time again, regardless. He was a converted Catholic. They were the toughest breed, these converts at a late age. They believed with more obstinacy.

So, no euthanasia for me, though I begged for it repeatedly:

to please, let me go, I can’t take it any more, leave me alone, please, please, please, let me die.

That doctor tried every trick in the book to keep us on the ward for as long as possible and wept each time they dragged out a prisoner before his time. One night, he denied his faith after all and hanged himself. I was in the ward at the time; not only didn’t I do anything to stop him, I even felt wronged because he could have finished me first.

The second doctor was a gentle middle-aged woman who was publicly strangled after only a month for showing too much private initiative.

Our third medic was this new, young kid, who had not even graduated yet; he’d been picked up from campus for having openly criticized an insignificant government policy.

The grey eyes were still on me when I looked up from my thoughts. In a way, they gave me comfort, a sense of being, as if I had been put back on the map. I almost felt human again. A young woman who had been sitting at Lee’s side came over, and I dropped down next to him in turn. We were careful to ignore each other, acting as if we were total strangers, I slouched against a wall with my back turned to him. I treasured these fragile moments, knowing that till the end of that break no one would torment me. Time rippled by in relative calm until an additional group of guards emerged from the main building, shouting and waving their bamboosticks, announcing in their own special way that playtime was over. When he got up, Lee stumbled and steadied himself against the wall, leaning over me as he did so.

—Tiens bien, Lin-mei, on vient te libérer bientôt.

I didn’t stir and only got up when he was already entering the prison block.

This massive building had initially been built in the nineteenth century as a fortified castle for a wealthy family on a remote and desolate mountainside. It had successfully withstood various attacks in the past, both from Chinese and Japanese aggressors. A massive battlement formed a square, with lookout towers on each corner controlling every movement inside and outside of this purgatory. Sentries patrolled walls and towers day and night. A large central gate opened into a common yard of stamped earth. Three separate buildings had been erected within the compound, with their backs against the walls. Across from the main entrance was the principal building, three stories high, topped with a crescent roof. Its ground level was constructed from stone, and the upper floors were of wood, with ornate balconies that ran all around each level. The first two floors served as living quarters for the prison staff. They lived here permanently too; in a way, there was some irony in that, somewhere.

On the top level were the interrogation rooms.

The low east building contained the hospital and general storage in the stone basement, with the kitchens on the ground floor. The west building was entirely built of stone and had been transformed into prison blocks in the early fifties. A central hallway divided that building in half, with a massive stone staircase connecting each level. A back corridor ran left and right to the cells, which all faced that terrible yard. Each side was secured with a massive metal door, bolted and locked excessively after each passage.

A prison cell measured two by four and a half meters. Cell doors were made from solid wood reinforced with iron brackets, and the wood was hard as stone. I knew this for a fact, as I had tried everything on it and hadn’t even made a dent. A cell came furnished with a bed, the same model as in hospital. A white plastic bucket with a warped lid served as a toilet. That was it. Every month they changed the blanket, and every week they distributed another roll of flimsy toilet paper. If lodged on the upper floors, one had the luxury of a barred window with a view. If living in the basement, one had a little opening high up against the ceiling and saw a speck of sky at a certain angle. In the wet season one lived in a swamp; in the hot season it was still chilly even by the time it was thirty-five degrees Celsius outside. But an underground cell had the advantage of being more soundproof than the cells upstairs. The cries of agony coming from the main building didn’t reach that far down, a major advantage if one wanted a good night’s sleep. That is, if one was still able to sleep.

Conversation between prisoners in their cells was non-existent; the walls were too thick and no sound passed. The guards delivered meals and blankets, and one wouldn’t want to talk to them. One only left one’s cell for a daily outing or question time.

Solitude was hard to bear. I put my bed in the middle and walked round for hours on end. I walked from wall to wall, jumped on one leg from one wall to another. I did press-ups, leg curls, and headstands; I counted the stones in every wall and had quite some trouble in adding the subtotals, for lack of decent writing material. I tried to occupy myself with word games and reinvented decoration schemes for my home in France. I recalled favourite melodies and recapitulated books for hours on end. I dwelt on childhood memories, and I feared the day I wouldn’t be able to recall anything at all.

That night, Lee’s words stayed on my mind. It was the first sign, after almost eighteen months, that an outside world still existed behind those walls and that it cared to acknowledge me. I didn’t dare to believe those words of hope, though. This incarceration had lasted too long already, and paranoia raged high. He had ended up in here too, hadn’t he? Any rescue would have to happen soon because, although I was a sorry exception to the general rule, prisoners didn’t last long in here. Lee had lost weight since I’d last seen him, but he looked fairly unharmed so far.

Who was I kidding?

They were going to jump on him like a ton of bricks for his knowledge and contacts. How long would he hold out before he snapped?

Total absence of social contact did have its advantages. Tortured strangers were easier to ignore, their cries and shrieks anonymous and abstract. This was not so with friends or acquaintances. It tripled the horror and added to the guilt and shame. What if they found out we were friends? The thought sickened me instantly. Anticipation was a major sin between these walls, and I had soon learned that I had to nip such thoughts in the bud. What was about to happen, would happen, no matter what. If I started speculating about things, my spirits would be dampened, which would lower my resistance. It was best never to think ahead – not about a possible escape, and not about the horrors that lay ahead. It made all the difference between an endless white night filled with distress and misery and one of dreamless black oblivion. So I forced myself to make my mind blank and prepare for the night ahead. Every evening I barricaded myself behind my bed. I slept in a corner, curled up with my back against a wall and my head upon my legs. That way, when they came for me, it would take them a few seconds to get past the bed. This gave me enough time to strike first. I could never hold on to my defences for long, but I managed on occasion to send a few casualties to the ward myself. It was one of my daily routines to plan a different approach to every next pick-up and one of my few remaining pleasures in life. In the beginning I had this bright idea of throwing the contents of the plastic bucket at them but stopped that practice right away as I wasn’t allowed to clean up the mess afterwards. A general notion of hygiene didn’t figure in their vocabulary anyway; the cells never saw a duster or a mop.

The sentries always came in pairs. Only two of them could enter the cell at the same time because of the confined space. When I put up a fight, they got in each other’s way, with the rest forced to stand outside, shouting advice to their mates and insults to me. They were not allowed to injure me, a knowledge I abused a lot. They had to deliver me in perfect condition so that the real butchers could have a go at it.

So, on the next morning, I held on to my bed for as long as possible and gave one of them a hell of a nosebleed. Eventually they managed to pin me down on the ground and tie my arms and legs, which ended the fun. Grabbing me by the upper arms and ankles, they carried me, head down, through the yard to the main three-storey building.

Passive resistance, remember?

They were in good condition and didn’t stop once for a second breath, but then they dropped me to the floor like hounds dropping their catch in front of their master and knocking all the air out of my lungs.

Their master was an army lieutenant. On paper he was second in command after the warden, but in practice the man ran this prison as he pleased. The warden usually manifested himself for the first five minutes when a new prisoner was introduced, after which he quietly faded away, back to his apartment, leaving the serious work in the capable hands of his first officer.

At first impression this lieutenant oozed elegance and classic nobility; he spoke softly and smiled a lot. Highly intelligent and well educated, he fluently spoke four other languages. He never tired, repeating his questions a zillion times in the same demure tone and using his consistent charms on men and women alike, many of whom were unable to believe that such a high-minded man would ever harm them. At the first meeting he would stay serene and easygoing, so prisoners would regain hope. Smoothly, he would get them to confess their sins, nodding with understanding at their motives, insisting on putting in a good word at the justice department on their behalf, and promising a swift return home to loved ones.

Many fell for him.

In the meantime, he checked and double-checked the information, taking down the names of friends, and their friends, and their friends, and launching cascades of new arrests. He was a predator ever ready to strike out. He never stopped questioning, insinuating, and guessing. If for one inadvertent moment his victim flinched at one of his theories, he spotted it instantly and was quick in making further deductions. His uniform remained forever spotless, even during the worst of tortures. He loved to strangle people while looking them in their eyes. Sometimes he interrupted the action to continue at another moment, like a cat playing with a mouse, till he got bored with the prey. Then he finished it quickly, tossing the body out into the corridor and slamming the door with a flourish: case closed. Those repudiated were generally thrown out of a back window, where they conveniently landed near the gorge. If they were dead instantly, they were lucky; otherwise, their expiration could drag out for days.

I hated this lieutenant most of all. He loved my obstinate revolt. Sometimes he passed me on to his assistants as a playmate while giving directions. He loved to clean me up afterwards and carry me to the ward – while singing a lullaby and kissing the swollen eyes, the cut lips, the many incisions, the violated genitals – where he would then wish me good night and au revoir.

He was a fallen archangel.

I felt myself being turned over with a foot. He got up languidly from the chair beside his desk, laughing at my sorry state. He pulled me to my feet, brushed me down, and turned me round, embracing me from behind.

Sung So-lee was hanging upside down, with his knees over a bamboo stick and his wrists shackled to his ankles. They had already beaten him severely; his face was one bloody pulp and he was trying spastically to withstand his own weight that pulled at his knees and arms.

—Do you know this man, chérie? He was overheard talking to you during recreation yesterday.

I kept staring at my poor friend while trying to hold my body rigid.

—Unfortunately, he fails to recall what he said, so I had this idea perhaps you would want to help him to stay alive a little longer.

While Lee’s blood was slowly dripping onto the floor, the lieutenant slid a hand inside my jacket and rolled a nipple between his fingers. I concentrated on the sunbeams piercing the dirty windows and the dust that swirled in the light in rainbow colours while he amused himself pinching a breast. Moments passed in total silence. At last he sighed theatrically at the total lack of response from both of us.

—Perhaps you don’t recognize him with all that blood on his face. Shall we clean him up for you?

He turned me round and smiled down at me, stroking my cheek. Then he nodded at his men, who instantly resumed their beatings. He lifted my chin with his thumbs, pressing them hard against my throat. I kept my eyes fixed on some stupid detail of his uniform, an insignia on his collar, my expression a blank. The pressure and pain increased, but I welcomed it; it made the noise behind my back easier to bear, the dull lashes interspersed with Lee’s suppressed moans. He kept scanning my face, looking for a hint of surrender.

—Sir, the prisoner has stopped breathing.

—Shit, you stupid morons!

Releasing me at once, he strode over to Lee, trying to feel a pulse in his neck. He gave up the effort after a while, cursing softly. Pensively he walked over to a washbasin, meticulously cleaning his hands. I didn’t move at all, keeping my eyes fixed on the wall in front of me and a massive lid on my emotions. The lieutenant came to stand at my side and forced me round once again to face my friend.

—See now what you made us do to the poor man, Lin-mei, and all the while I gave you every chance to stop it. Aren’t you ashamed? The fellow is dead, thanks to you, you wicked, wicked girl.

A turmoil of feelings raged inside me, tearing at my sanity while outwardly, I stood frozen with an empty look in my eyes, hardly breathing. How could this have happened so soon? Was this some sort of macabre trick? He could not be dead already, not Lee. Please, God, not Lee! I lowered my eyes and the sight of Sung So-lee hanging there powerless and violated got etched on my brain for eternity. The lieutenant caught the grief on my face. Intrigued, he signalled his goons. They opened a window facing the yard, hauled the bamboo stick with Lee still hanging on it between them, dragged him out to the balcony, and threw the lot over the parapet.

A brilliant doctor in economics, an honoured university professor, a dear friend, a beloved husband and father had been disposed of like garbage by his countrymen.

One of the guards was looking down, laughing his head off. I launched myself at him in a rage. The lieutenant tried to intercept me, but I flung my full weight at him, slamming him against the opened window. In an explosion of shattering glass, I went at the assassin again. I mowed at his feet with a leg sweep, moved under him, and worked him over the railing. He shrieked all the way down till he landed on his head next to Lee. Without hesitation I threw myself after him. This time I didn’t keep a lid on it and cried out my rage at the top of my lungs when merciless hands caught me by my ankles and pulled me up. I fought the relentless hands, kicking and screaming, but to no avail as, laboriously, I was dragged back in. A guard contained me with both arms round my neck while I shivered violently, facing further misery instead of eternal oblivion. The lieutenant was bleeding heavily, staring in utter astonishment at a deep cut on the back of his right hand. His uniform was splashed red and his perfectly pressed shirt ripped in several places by the glass. He fixed me with a poised stare while he unbuttoned his collar and sleeves. In one swift fluid movement he pulled it over his head, tossing it at his aide to tear up and bandage the hand.

I smiled at him.

He slowly smiled back.

He ordered me to be hanged by my wrists and then ripped off my jacket with one hard tug. He crushed the end of a slender bamboo stick with his left fist and, while I rotated slowly, started whipping me full-force with the injured hand. I managed to keep the smile on my face until I sank away in darkness.

I woke up to full daylight and a splitting headache. I was cleaned up, in a new uniform, and lying on my bed in my cell. A bowl of rice and another one filled with water sat on the ground by the door, so I had survived yet another day. My whole body was hurting like hell with every move I made, and I quickly returned to my bed. I ate the rice slowly, scanning it thoroughly for any unusual life form; it wouldn’t be the first time I’d found living organisms happily crawling between the half-cooked grains, courtesy of the cook. I tried to block out thoughts of yesterday’s events by playing O-X-O in the dust. After two games (I always let myself win), the dust had turned into mud with my tears. I desperately needed a happy thought – fast. I fought back a hyperventilation attack by putting my hands over my mouth and nose. That didn’t help either; my stomach turned, and I threw up into the bucket I managed to reach just in time. I crawled back to my bed in utter misery and started re-counting the stones on the left wall, the cadence that always worked to calm me down. Then the grey eyes sprang to mind, and I concentrated on those, trying to remember the set of his mouth, the long, lean legs, the arm casually resting on a knee, the way he had looked at me, poised and intense. I started crying again, aching to be held and comforted.

I heard the main entrance door being noisily unbolted; one after the other, prison doors were flung hard against the walls. It was playtime already. How time did fly in here.

When I tottered into the yard, I immediately sensed calamity. Prisoners had congregated at the main building, where they were looking at something on the ground. There was not a single guard in sight, which had to be a first. I reluctantly went to join the group, already dreading what I was going to find. Lee had not been dead when they had thrown him out, and he was still breathing laboriously. The bamboo stick had been removed and his mutilated, distorted body covered with a blanket. Next to his head was a bowl of water. Struck with grief, I sank to my knees at his side and kowtowed. I knew instinctively he was beyond help; with my face pressed to the ground I desperately started to pray.

—Salut Marie, pleine de grâce. Le bon Dieu est avec vous …

He barely opened his eyes and tried to speak, but he failed to utter a sound. I moistened the remains of his lips with the water as best I could and searched to hold his hand, but that made him moan, so I stopped it instantly.

—Tue moi, je t’en prie.

I closed my eyes and fought back the nausea. How could I let him suffer for another night, another hour, another minute? The prisoners shuffled closer, closing the circle, some of them holding up their hands to shelter Lee’s face from the sun. I wet his lips again, straightened the rim of the blanket, and softly kissed his cheek.

—Annette … dis-lui … je l’aime.

—A bientôt, mon chèr ami.

I carefully pulled the blanket away, wincing at the sight of the ruined body. I folded the cloth slowly and meticulously on my lap, taking my time to straighten the corners. He anxiously followed every gesture until I finally lifted the blanket in front of his face. He sighed deeply and tried to smile with the crushed lips.

The sight tore at my heart.

I pressed my eyes shut for a second, then put the blanket softly over his face, gradually adding pressure. He didn’t even resist; it was over very soon. I closed his eyes and straightened his hair, and a few prisoners helped me in covering the body with the cloth. With my hand on his chest, I looked up at the sky in search of some sanity. The warden was standing outside on his terrace, smoking one of his eternal cigarettes and looking down on the sorry scene. The moment he saw I’d noticed him he threw down his smoke, crushed it under his shoe, and disappeared into his apartment, hunched like an old man. Someone pushed himself through the human safety cordon and crouched down at Lee’s other side, taking the trouble to check for a pulse. I was still sitting on my heels, staring out numbly in front of me, inadvertently caressing my friend’s chest and sinking deeper and deeper into despair. The man stepped over Lee’s body. The other prisoners reluctantly moved out of his way with suppressed mumbles of protest. Before I realized what he was doing, he had swept me up in his arms. Despite the danger he put himself in with that rash action, I lacked the courage to protest, and I let my head sink against his shoulder instead. He carried me to a place in the sun and sat down beside me, shielding me with his body.

No one claimed my place that day.

Pain and grief kept me awake all night. I had crawled under my bed, rolled up in my blanket, and I had fled into memories of the first time I had met Annette. At the age of twelve, and in our first year at Ste Ursule, we had liked each other instantly. Both children of mixed parentage, we had bonded right away. At that age, we were convinced the whole planet was made especially for us, with everything in it one big game. We spent most of our time together. We sat next to each other in class. We invented a lot of practical jokes and perfected them in time, practising on the nuns. After school we did our homework at my place or hers. We were inseparable.

One day, while playing in the attic at Annette’s home, we found several ancient editions of Karl May in an old play chest that had once belonged to her father. From then on we were forever impersonating Winnetou and Old Shatterhand, and with a few other crazed tomboys, we played for days on end, making tepees and taking no prisoners.

My mother was continuously complaining about vanishing bed sheets. But then one day we discovered boys. From then on, we were endlessly whining about unanswered love over the phone, even when we saw each other daily at school. It tripled our fathers’ phone bills, another matter of parental concern.

In 1981 my family had to leave Korea for France, but Annette and I kept writing, sharing the same likes and dislikes. I accepted Lee immediately as her choice of husband and was godmother to their youngest child, a daughter named Sophie. At her baptism, one sunny day in June, another happy moment etched itself on my mind. While Annette was breastfeeding Sophie in a lounge chair in their beautiful garden, Lee was playing football with the two boys on the lawn. Suddenly, and without any warning (perhaps they were losing), the boys decided to switch from football to rugby, tackling their father in mid-air. The utter astonishment on his face as he went down, and the joyful shrieks of the boys on top of him, made us both cry with laughter. Sweeping them both up in his arms, he took his revenge instantly and didn’t stop tickling them until their total surrender.

The happy thought didn’t last long, and soon I was submerged in misery again, manically pacing my cell. How was I ever going to tell Annette and the kids that they would never see him again? How could I tell them how he had died and for what reason? He had just turned thirty-eight.

I heard a distant rumble like the sound of a storm picking up fast. I heard no rain though, which was strange. Then an explosion, immediately followed by another one closer by, shook the ground and lit up the profound darkness. Dust swirled up and mortar fell down from the ceiling. Heavy gunfire started from the towers, harsh commands were shouted in the yard, feet hurried past, and voices cried out. Sirens sounded a general alarm. Another blast! Soil and debris spouted through my window. Helicopters flew over low, making the air tremble, their search beams sporadically illuminating the cell. Machine guns blasted and voices mounted an octave. The blasts seemed directed at the front gate, and they followed one after another. Then our building took a direct hit. The ground shook violently, and a blast of wind sent my bed flying. There was another heavy thud, and the cell filled with dust. I threw my blanket over my head in a reflex to keep most of it out of my face and crouched in a corner under the window.

Outside, machine guns rattled everywhere. Voices started panicking for real, some crying out loud when they were hit. Helicopters rotated over the yard, and a light beam entered my cell fleetingly. My cell door had been blasted open; it still hung with one hinge on the remains of a shattered corridor wall. The bed had taken most of the blow and lay smashed against the wall. As the dust settled, I shook the debris off the blanket and got up, unable to resist the urge to get out of this cell by my own for once. I felt my way out by following the wall on my left. The corridor was pitch dark and full of rubble. I called out softly to other prisoners but didn’t catch a response. I progressed slowly, searching my way carefully over planks and stones until I heard a low moan. I shuffled in its direction until I hit a wall and then a void. The ground was a heap of rocks of all sizes. I started climbing over them. I heard a moan again, in front, below me; carefully I felt round with my hands. Wood, a cell door! I crawled further. The moaning came from under the door. I slid to the left and followed the outlines of the door. A body, a prisoner was trapped under it, pinned under that massive door with a pile of rocks on top.

I started rolling off the stones, using an inch of light that fell down from a burst window. Progressing slowly, I tried to lift the weight simultaneously from both sides while worrying how I was ever to get that man from under there. I was already certain I would never be able to lift that door on my own. I pushed a few of the larger stones under each corner to take pressure off the man, and after what seemed like an eternity, I had the door cleared of most of the rubble. The rocks at each corner supported most of the door’s weight, but I would have to create extra room between the door and the man’s body in order to pull him out from under it. I was in dire need of a rest; I felt exhausted and I sat down to catch my breath. Outside, the fighting was still going strong, gunshots rattled everywhere, and shouts and yells came and went. Carefully clearing the dust and debris from the prisoner’s head, I touched against stubble. Only one man could have the beginning of a heavy beard in this prison! I could still feel a pulse in his neck, but his eyes were closed, and he was shaking from shock and pain. I had to get him out, fast.

I hopped back to my cell, fetching some bits and pieces from my destroyed bed, choosing the sturdiest ones that could be wedged into the space between the floor and the door. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom by then, or perhaps the moon was out; in any chase, I moved about with more confidence. I worked myself under the door laboriously, blocked the top of a plank with my head, and pulled the end towards me with short little jerks. The door inched up. The plank stuck. My head started hurting. I ran my hand over his body, checking for free space. I started at the knee but got stuck at the chest. Another effort straightened the plank a bit more.

I checked again and ran my hand freely over the whole length of his body this time. Although rather unnecessary, I stroked him over once more, in the alternate sense, while I rested my aching head and neck on my left arm. This was a nice body indeed: firm and muscular in all the right places. I pulled myself together and rolled from under the door with some effort, piling more stones under that corner just to make it safer. Then I crawled to the other side and repeated the strenuous drill. In the end, it cost me even more time. I started to see black dots and had to stop for a couple of minutes to catch my breath, but after several attempts my hand finally crossed without obstruction. As I touched down his legs to his ankles, he started to moan, and I felt something sticky on my hand. I moved back to his head, checking once more for a pulse, and he turned his head in response to my touch.

—Etes-vous conscient?

—Sorry, darling, my French is very poorly.

In normal circumstances, I would have frowned upon a total stranger who, without proper introduction, would address me as darling, but these were extraordinary times, so I let it pass.

—You are conscious.

—Barely.

—Can you get out on your own now?

—Negative … right leg … left side … seriously messed up.

He spoke like British military. He pulled up his right arm and caught my hand still on his neck. I was panting hard from pain and fatigue, all done in. He put a kiss on the back of my hand and held on to it.

—Don’t worry, darling. My men will be here any minute now … they’ll lift that door … in a jiffy.

—You couldn’t had said that sooner, could you?

—A bit tight round the chest … so thanks for giving me some air. Loved the massage … by the way … why stop?

He kept his voice soft and light-hearted, but his hand was still shaking badly. He was obviously in more pain than he pretended to be. I gently pressed his hand, glad for the rest and the prospect of possible assistance. I was not very tempted to pull him out myself; he had to be more than twice my weight.

The air was still filled with unremitting shooting accompanied by humans shouting in all possible keys. A new blast nearby shook the building, making the door shift slightly. His hand squeezed mine involuntarily, and he groaned. If that door fell down on him, he was finished for sure. Ignoring my own pain, I struggled to my feet, grabbed his shirt at his shoulders, and pulled hard. He cried out once, and then his body went all limp. If he had been wearing prison gear I would have been standing with a jacket in my hands and not much else. Luckily for him, he was still wearing a shirt of excellent British quality that had not given an inch, so I went at it again. I assembled as much fabric as possible, took some very deep breaths, and, while I screamed at the top of my voice for encouragement, started pulling with the strength I had left. Slowly I managed a step, and then another, and another more, and when I thought my back and arms would burst, he finally slid free from beneath the door. I tripped over some rocks and fell down painfully between the rubble, hitting the wall with my back and pulling him down with me. I couldn’t move; I was too tired, in too much pain, and gasping for the next breath. Without apparent cause, the corridor wall collapsed with a grinding sound. A large chunk of it toppled and fell, snapping the door neatly in half. I stared numbly at the destruction and concentrated hard on taking another breath.

Heavy boots moved quickly past the window. The dust settled slowly, and after a while I breathed more easily.

A minor blast at the main door shook me out of my lethargy, when a sudden stream of cold air touched my face. Boots marched in and light beams danced over the floor and walls. I started to count in my head in an effort to