the key turns in the lock. Sein Yun’s shuffling feet retreat down the long corridor.
. 5 .
T he palm-reader’s smell—the ammonia of old sweat, the pungent scent of betel and lime-slaked leaves—hovers in the cell like an unwashed ghost. Teza wrinkles his nose. Then a familiar twitch sends his eyes down to the floor. He swears loudly and stamps his foot, but the cockroaches aren’t afraid. They know this prisoner well. Partly because of Buddhism, partly because their guts make such a mess, Teza doesn’t kill cockroaches.
He squats and glares down. They’re on their way to his breakfast. The only way to keep them at bay while he’s eating is to give them their own little meal. “You’re worse than the damn wardens!” He collects the rice Sein Yun spilled and places it, in several discrete portions, in front of the advancing battalion.
He shifts the tray to the center of the cell, away from the roaches, quickly rinses his hands, then sits down to eat, facing the teak door. His fingers pause at the tray’s edge.
Pea curry. Pea soup, really, because a curry requires spices and oil, two ingredients that are mostly absent from this gray water. Completing the menu is half a teaspoon of very low-quality fermented fish paste and a clump of broken rice.
The evening meal is slightly different: a kind of vegetable soup, also mostly water, also served with rice normally fed to pigs. Sometimes the “vegetable” is simply grass, or stalks of cauliflower. Occasionally he receives a piece of gristle in his soup. The prison kings believe this piece of gristle is meat, which shows how corrupt, well-fed men gradually lose touch with reality.
Dissatisfied with plain rice, a few of the cockroaches have begun a hesitant advance toward Teza, who claps his hands together. “Get away from me, you fascists, get away!” It depends on his mood. He also calls them socialists, capitalists, Americans, imperialists, Chinese businessmen, and bloody dictators.
With oily grace, the troop disperses, back to the rice, into the dark corners.
Still sitting before his food, the singer clasps his index finger and thumb around his wrist. It used to be that the index finger wouldn’t reach his thumb. Only the middle finger could close the bracelet. But now index finger meets thumb with room to spare. The prison is erasing him.
Weighing himself this way, or looking down at the knobbed bones of his hips, or feeling the holes in his gums where teeth used to be, Teza experiences a disturbing lucidity of vision, as though he is dreaming of someone else. There he is, a man with dark eyes and famine wrists, black hair grown to his shoulders. He sits in the center of a small cell, encircled by a shifting ring of cockroaches. Taking a deep breath, he begins to eat the broken rice with his long fingers, pinching the grains into a ball, dipping it into the fish paste and the soup, lifting the food to his lips. With the third bite, his teeth close on a small stone. One of the reasons he eats slowly is to catch these dangerous bits. He once found a piece of iron the size of a fingernail in his soup.
His tongue delivers the stone out of his mouth. Like a child on a riverbank, he turns it this way and that, as though it might bear a secret mark of worth. But it’s just a small gray rock. He places it on the tray’s edge, for later. Nothing is useless in a coffin.
Nausea undulates through his stomach, ripples up into his throat.
Ya-deh, ya-deh, ya-ba-deh
. Never, never mind, it doesn’t matter. He disciplines himself to chew, chew. No matter how bad it tastes, every meal is a small event in the abyss of prison time.
Chew, chew, chew. It’s like gnawing the mat at the entrance to a noodle shop. There is food somewhere beyond it, on a higher plane.
Now comes the inevitable swallow.
He’s sad to admit how good it tastes, once the first few mouthfuls have gone down. Saliva floods in. His stomach stretches inside his body, opening like the mouth of a
. 5 .
T he palm-reader’s smell—the ammonia of old sweat, the pungent scent of betel and lime-slaked leaves—hovers in the cell like an unwashed ghost. Teza wrinkles his nose. Then a familiar twitch sends his eyes down to the floor. He swears loudly and stamps his foot, but the cockroaches aren’t afraid. They know this prisoner well. Partly because of Buddhism, partly because their guts make such a mess, Teza doesn’t kill cockroaches.
He squats and glares down. They’re on their way to his breakfast. The only way to keep them at bay while he’s eating is to give them their own little meal. “You’re worse than the damn wardens!” He collects the rice Sein Yun spilled and places it, in several discrete portions, in front of the advancing battalion.
He shifts the tray to the center of the cell, away from the roaches, quickly rinses his hands, then sits down to eat, facing the teak door. His fingers pause at the tray’s edge.
Pea curry. Pea soup, really, because a curry requires spices and oil, two ingredients that are mostly absent from this gray water. Completing the menu is half a teaspoon of very low-quality fermented fish paste and a clump of broken rice.
The evening meal is slightly different: a kind of vegetable soup, also mostly water, also served with rice normally fed to pigs. Sometimes the “vegetable” is simply grass, or stalks of cauliflower. Occasionally he receives a piece of gristle in his soup. The prison kings believe this piece of gristle is meat, which shows how corrupt, well-fed men gradually lose touch with reality.
Dissatisfied with plain rice, a few of the cockroaches have begun a hesitant advance toward Teza, who claps his hands together. “Get away from me, you fascists, get away!” It depends on his mood. He also calls them socialists, capitalists, Americans, imperialists, Chinese businessmen, and bloody dictators.
With oily grace, the troop disperses, back to the rice, into the dark corners.
Still sitting before his food, the singer clasps his index finger and thumb around his wrist. It used to be that the index finger wouldn’t reach his thumb. Only the middle finger could close the bracelet. But now index finger meets thumb with room to spare. The prison is erasing him.
Weighing himself this way, or looking down at the knobbed bones of his hips, or feeling the holes in his gums where teeth used to be, Teza experiences a disturbing lucidity of vision, as though he is dreaming of someone else. There he is, a man with dark eyes and famine wrists, black hair grown to his shoulders. He sits in the center of a small cell, encircled by a shifting ring of cockroaches. Taking a deep breath, he begins to eat the broken rice with his long fingers, pinching the grains into a ball, dipping it into the fish paste and the soup, lifting the food to his lips. With the third bite, his teeth close on a small stone. One of the reasons he eats slowly is to catch these dangerous bits. He once found a piece of iron the size of a fingernail in his soup.
His tongue delivers the stone out of his mouth. Like a child on a riverbank, he turns it this way and that, as though it might bear a secret mark of worth. But it’s just a small gray rock. He places it on the tray’s edge, for later. Nothing is useless in a coffin.
Nausea undulates through his stomach, ripples up into his throat.
Ya-deh, ya-deh, ya-ba-deh
. Never, never mind, it doesn’t matter. He disciplines himself to chew, chew. No matter how bad it tastes, every meal is a small event in the abyss of prison time.
Chew, chew, chew. It’s like gnawing the mat at the entrance to a noodle shop. There is food somewhere beyond it, on a higher plane.
Now comes the inevitable swallow.
He’s sad to admit how good it tastes, once the first few mouthfuls have gone down. Saliva floods in. His stomach stretches inside his body, opening like the mouth of a
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