Every woman who was in our cage when I left now returns from eating. How can this many women fit in a room this size? At nine o’clock, Buddhist prayers blast through a speaker until it’s time to go to bed. The speakers are terrible and crackle out the words. Hearing it all drives me crazy. When the prayers end, two of the lights go off. The other two stay on throughout the night. Never again will I be able to sleep in the dark.
Everybody grabs a blanket, and all the women crowd the floor. Some seem to know exactly where they belong. The entire floor is covered with blue blankets without even a glimpse of the floor remaining. Many blankets are overlapping. I grab my blanket and sit down at the only spot I can find. A large woman yells, “Yay phuing lew” and throws my blanket across the room.
It hits another woman’s face. She looks at me like I was the one who threw it. I go pick it up and find another spot, but a different woman does the same thing. It seems to me that the sleeping arrangements were established long before I arrived. The places along the front and side walls are the most valuable. The floor gets tighter the closer you get to the middle.
After I’m pushed away a third time, I look at everyone and scream, “There’s nowhere for me to go. I don’t know what you want me to do.”
This only angers the women more.
When I was at the other jail, I thought I was going home soon. This prison feels so much more permanent. This is my first day. I’m not sure if I’m going to make it through the night. I can’t even find a place to sleep. I’m honestly afraid someone will kill me in my sleep.
I scan the room and locate a small gap between two women. I walk over and fall on the floor in the middle of this heap of bodies. I sit with my legs crossed and pull my knees tight against my chest to take up as little room as possible. The woman behind me kicks the middle of my back so hard that I fall over. Women push me back and forth, but I refuse to leave. If I get up, I’ll never be able to sit down again. I tuck my head tight against my knees, and refuse to budge no matter how many times they push or kick me.
All the pain, anger, and disgust from the last three days rise inside of me and I scream as loud as I can. It’s ear-shattering. The women stop pushing while I sit there crying. My pain comes in waves. I only stop crying long enough to catch my breath. I don’t cry long before the women in my cell start yelling words I don’t understand. I’m sure they’re screaming at me to stop. Prisoner’s down the hall also yell at me because my gut-wrenching sobs can be heard everywhere. I fear two large women might attack me if I keep crying; yet I just can’t stop.
Someone in our cage must realize that I’m never going to stop. She comes up from behind, and puts her hand on my shoulder. I turn my head and she pulls me into her chest. She lays my head on her shoulders and wipes away my tears. I continue to cry, but now much quieter. She rocks me back and forth in her arms and rubs my back like I’m a little girl who just lost her mommy. This is the only shred of kindness I’ve felt in three days. She stands up, takes my hand, and leads me to her blanket in the middle of the floor. There’s no room to sleep except on our sides so I lie down beside her. I haven’t slept more than two hours in days so I quickly fall asleep.
I wake up when a loud bell rings at six o’clock in the morning. I look around and realize that this sweet woman is still holding my head in her lap. I sit up beside her and point at my chest. “I’m Faith.” I then point to her chest. “What’s your name?”
“Ah,” the woman says pointing to her chest. “Mali.”
“Hi, Mali,” I say pointing to her. “You’re so kind.” She stares at me like she doesn’t understand what I just said. “How do I make a call?” I ask. She still has a blank face so I take my right hand and make it look like I’m holding a telephone. I put the imaginary phone to my ear and pretend to talk. “Phone?” I ask.
She shakes her head and says, “Mi.”
I now know that “mi” means no. I don’t think she understands my question so I put my hand back up to my ear again and say, “Phone … I need to make a call.”
She again shakes her head. This time she grabs my hand pulling my imaginary phone away from my ear. “No coll, no coll,” she says.
Maybe she did understand what I’m asking. “Do you speak English?” I ask.
She holds up her thumb and pointer finger showing a tiny space. “Little.”
“No phone?” I ask one more time.
She shakes her head and says, “Mi.”
Communicating with her is almost impossible. She knows little English and, of course, I know no Thai. She can’t explain to me when or how I’ll be able to make a phone call. I ask her when we’ll take a shower by mimicking myself washing my hair and body. She seems to understand and nods her head. It’s the only positive thing I’ve heard. I have so many questions, but I don’t know how to ask them. I cannot understand most of her answers anyway.
She gets up, and we fold our blankets and put them in a stack. There’s only one toilet in our cage (another squatting hole in the floor) with no walls and no privacy. If you want to be one of the first in line for the toilet you have to start at four o’clock in the morning. If you wait until six, you’ll miss your chance completely. There are two more squatting toilets outside our cage, but if you wait for those you’ll be at the back of the line and probably miss breakfast.
After we put away our blankets, we sit back on the floor, side by side, so they can take roll call. Every morning a guard comes in with a clipboard. Each prisoner yells out her number until everyone is accounted for. Our numbers may not be tattooed on our bodies, but a number is all we are to them. I’ve never heard of an escape so they must be noting who died in the night.
When roll call is over, we leave for breakfast, which begins at seven o’clock. We only get forty-five minutes to wait in line, eat breakfast, and return our tray. The room is just as packed as it was yesterday. I didn’t wait so long to get in line this time so I make it to the front in time to get a seat. I take a tray, hoping breakfast is at least edible. This time I’m given a bowl with a small amount of rice and something that looks like curry. The rice is almost rotten, and there isn’t enough to even fill a coffee cup. It smells like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. I’ve got to keep something down if I’m going to survive until Christian gets me out of here so I pour the curry on the rice and take a small bite of the sticky mess. Immediately, I know it’s not curry. It’s water with chili powder and a few leaves that look like they came right off a tree. I taste one of the leaves, but it has no flavor whatsoever. I gag on the rice and liquid in my bowl yet I manage to keep it all down before the bell rings for us to return to our cells.
Mali sits beside me. When we’re finished eating, she takes her hands, points to the door, and mimics washing her arms and legs.
“Shower?” I ask. She gets a confused look on her face like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. “Wash?” I ask, pretending to wash my hands and face.
“Yes, wass,” she nods.
“We’re going to wash?” I ask, pointing at the door with all the excitement of a child who wakes up on Christmas morning ready to see what Santa delivered in the night. This is fantastic. Other than a phone call, this is the one thing I need the most. At this point, I don’t care if the water is cold. It’s so hot outside that even a freezing cold shower will feel great.
We leave the cafeteria, and I wonder if I’ve misunderstood what Mali was trying to say. Instead of going to the showers, we leave out the back door and down a small stairway to the yard. I don’t know why they call it a yard. It has no trees, no swings, no pond, and nothing to make it look like a yard. There are no weights, no basketball courts, and no baseball fields.
When I turn the corner, I see about two hundred women waiting in a line that leads to a trough full of brown, dirty, stagnant water. Women are holding plastic cups and bowls that they use to scoop out some of the water to wash themselves. There’s no running water, no soap, no rags, and no towels. As soon as anyone gets a litt
le water, the crowd pushes them along. Some women are standing without tops, and others without skirts. They take the water in their cup or bowl and try to wash themselves. I get in line, but everyone is desperately pushing forward. I don’t even get close to the trough before all of the water is gone. I haven’t had a shower in days. I’ll have to wait another day to wash any part of my body.
After we return to our cage, most of the women leave for their jobs. Now I know where everyone was when I arrived yesterday. Some work is mandatory and without pay. These jobs include cooking in the kitchen, sweeping and mopping, general cleaning, and helping the guards with whatever they might want you to do. Other work is more like a regular job, except you get paid almost nothing. These jobs include making clothes and shoes, sewing, folding, and packaging. Since I’m new and I’m still in chains, I’ve got no job, nothing to read, and no way to write. There’s no radio to listen to. The television is on every night for one hour, but I can’t understand anything that’s said. I sit in the cage with absolutely nothing to do except wait as the hours pass so slowly I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Just before dinner, the women return from work. Our cage is again packed beyond comprehension. It feels like they’ve somehow added even more women since last night. When the bell is about to ring for dinner, I slowly make my way to the door so I’ll be first in line. Two women yell at me. One pushes me away from the door so I fall to the floor. The other woman spits on me. Mali comes to my rescue before one of the women stomps on my face. The bell rings, and I get up and walk to the cafeteria. At least now I’m in the middle of the line. Again, I take a tray, and I’m given a small bowl with rotten rice, brown water, and lemongrass. This time there’s a piece of meat or chicken in the rice. I don’t know if it’s worse to eat the rice, which is clearly rotten, or starve to death. I put the rice in my mouth and take a bite. As soon as I begin to chew, I realize it’s not meat in my bowl. It’s a brown stone. I spit out the stone, set it on the table, and eat the rice and water left in my bowl. This time I manage to hold it down without once throwing up. When I get to the bottom of my bowl, I can see there’s some type of dirt or sand mixed in the rice.
Everyone returns from dinner and settles in for the night. Comparing us to sardines is an understatement; at least sardines can all lie down. There’s a row of women who sleep shoulder to shoulder sitting against the walls. Everyone else is crowded in the middle. Some women sit back to back. Some women stand because there’s no place to sit. I try to get answers from Mali, but she’s not much help. I still have no idea when I’ll be able to make a call or how my family or friends will find me in here. Nothing makes sense to me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or if I’ll ever get out of here.
The Buddhist prayers blast over the speakers. All I can do is go back to Mali. Without me even asking, she makes a tiny spot for me beside her. Again, there isn’t enough room to lie on my back or my stomach. I sleep on my left side until it becomes so sore that I sit up and turn onto my right side. I lie on the hot, sticky floor listening to the sound of women snoring, coughing, sneezing, and talking to themselves. A woman is bawling in the cell across the hall. I feel sorry for her, but it goes on so long that I just want it to stop. I now know how I sounded last night to everyone around me—alone and terrified.
I finally fall asleep and dream for the first time in weeks. In my dream, I’m asleep in my bed in Austin with my children all around me. I have no idea how I escaped the prison, but I don’t care. All I know is now I’m safe and I’ll never set foot in Thailand again. My bed’s so crowded with my kids on top of me that I can’t move or even turn to one side or the other. My baby pushes even closer and lays her leg on top of me, so I put my arms around her and draw her near. As I pull her closer, my arms are suddenly empty and all my children are gone. I turn over and now see Christian lying beside me with his hand on my face. It feels so peaceful seeing him again and feeling his soft touch.
“Where did you go?” I ask as he strokes my face. “I was charged with drugs.”
He takes his hand from my cheek and combs his fingers through my hair. “I’m here, baby,” he whispers. “Don’t worry, I’m here. Everything’s going to be fine.”
His words fill my body with calm. All my fears disappear. I feel such love and peace knowing he’s going to take care of everything. He didn’t leave me. I slowly move my mouth to his. When I look at his face his blue eyes are dark—almost black. He has a wicked smile that haunts me worse than any horror movie I’ve ever seen. His hand on my cheek that was so warm and comforting is now cold and hard. It’s scratching my skin. I slowly feel myself moving from my dream back into reality. Feeling his fingers scratching my cheek stirs me awake and I open my eyes. I realize I’m back on the damp, sticky, smelly floor with a tangle of women pushing in on every side. One woman’s leg is draped across my back.
As my dream fades, I realize it’s not Christian’s thumb on my face. I feel a large cockroach crawling across my cheek and it runs into my hair. I sit up and scream loud enough to wake everyone around me. I frantically grab at my hair until the roach falls onto my lap. It must look like I’ve gone insane. I jump to my feet and the roach runs from my lap to the floor and out of sight.
I awake to the realization that I’m back in Thailand. I’m back in this hell. I’m breathing hard and fast, and I’m sweating from the hot damp air, the struggle with the cockroach, and my nightmare that’s still fresh in my mind. Mali takes my hand and slowly lowers me back down to her. I lie close beside her and cry. She holds me like she’s my mommy while I lie there awake throughout the night. I’m afraid if I fall asleep again, I might see those same black eyes and the smile of the devil.
– CHAPTER 46 –
When the bell rings at six o’clock in the morning, the sounds of everyone moving, coughing, laughing, and chattering sweep across the room. Like it or not, it’s time for another day. Women who look anorexic begin walking around. I put away my blanket and sit on the floor to be counted. I don’t need to go to the toilet because I went in the middle of the night.
Back in the cafeteria, I get a scoop of rice and the watery mix. This time, there’s a piece of a chicken bone with no meat on it. I can’t understand why there’s a bone but no meat. Maybe these are the bones left after someone else’s meal.
I take a spoonful and do my best to get it down. It feels like the rice is moving – like it’s alive! “Shit,” I scream and spit the rice on my tray. Three maggots are wiggling back and forth. Everyone around me laughs and motions for me to eat them. This would become common. The Thai women will eat maggots, but I can’t do it yet. I push the maggots aside and eat the rice.
I finish eating the mess as quickly as I can because I haven’t been able to wash in a week, so I want to be one of the first to get a cup or bowl and wash myself. I hurry to the line. The water trough is so close I can see it, but just before I make it to the front, a guard comes right up from behind, grabs my arm, and yells, “Phu Ma You-in … Phu Ma You-in.”
“What?” I ask, pointing at the water. “I don’t understand. I’m going to wash.”
“Mi,” the guard says shaking his head. “Phu Ma You-in.”
I plead for him to let me continue on my way. “Please, I’ve got to wash. Please let me wash.”
He shakes his head and forcefully pulls me out of the line. “Phu Ma You-in!” he shouts again.
I worked so hard to get to the front, and now they pull me out? It’s like the whole world has turned against me.
“No, no, no,” I repeat.
Right then, Mali runs from the front of the line to see what’s going on. The guard looks at her and says, “Phu Ma You-in.”
Mali puts her arms around me to calm me down, points to the door, and mimics a phone with her hand. “Tok you … tok you,” she says.
“Talk to me? … Someone is here to talk to me?” I ask, with my eyes open wide.
“Yes,” she says with a nod and a smile. “Talk you.”
&n
bsp; I cannot believe my ears. I turn around and follow the guard back up the steps to the door. He unlocks the door and we walk across the red floor and then down another hallway. It has to be Christian. He’s the only person who knows I’m here. He must have found out I was arrested when I didn’t make it home over a week ago.
“Thank you, God … I’m going home,” I say as we walk past a long line of men and women waiting in line at the door.
The guard takes me past everyone until we reach the visitor’s area. There’s a row of inmates each talking someone on the other side of a wired window made of steel and thick glass. There’s a small open to talk through. The glass is so dirty it’s hard to see through it. I look at the stools on the other side of the glass trying to find Christian. Both men and women crowd the other side, waiting their turn at the phones, but I don’t see him anywhere. The guard leads me to an empty chair across from an older gray-haired gentleman in a suit and tie who I’ve never seen before. I expect him to get up so Christian can sit down. Instead, he taps his phone on the glass. There’s no divider separating me from the inmate next to me who is also talking through the small hole. It’s pretty hard to hear.
I’m completely confused. I sit down, lean closer, and say, “Hello?”
“Ms. Brunick,” he says in perfect English, “my name is Mike Sassen. I’m an officer with the United States Embassy.”
Thank you, God! I close my eyes in disbelief and say, “I’m so glad you’re here. I thought I was forgotten.”
“I’m the prison liaison,” he explains with a smile. “I was notified by the court that you wanted to see me. He reaches in his briefcase and takes out several pamphlets. “I first want to give you some information to help you understand the process and what you’re going through.” He slides the pamphlets through the small opening at the bottom of the glass between us. “I’m here to answer any questions you might have. First, how are you holding out in here?”
The Killing of Faith: A Suspense Thriller You Won't Soon Forget. (The Killing of Faith Series Book 1) Page 24
