Dragons & Butterflies

by Shani Krebs

  Mikhail also had a Nokia, the same as the one we shared before I got my own dog. One afternoon, about an hour and a half after lockdown, I was sitting on my bed with my back resting against the wall. On my lap I had a file in which I was using Joseph’s dog, a Panasonic. I had earphones in my ears, pretending to be reading and listening to music, but instead I was busy texting with about ten people at the same time. I was so caught up in what I was doing, I never even heard the steel doors to the downstairs section being opened. Mikhail’s instincts were so sharp, though, that within seconds he was in the toilet flushing his phone down. The British guy also flushed his phone, but, by the time I realised what was going on, it was too late. The guards were standing by the bars, armed with batons, and instructing everybody to stay where they were. Mikhail casually came out of the toilet, while somehow I managed to roll the earphones around the mobile and slip it into my underpants, between my testicles and anus. Our cell door was opened and we were ordered to exit one by one while a guard stood by the door subjecting each person to a thorough body search as they passed. Fuck, I nearly shat in my pants. I literally started shaking and for once didn’t even have time to say a prayer. In my hand I took my key-ring and a dishcloth that I used to wipe the sweat. There were six keys attached to a string long enough to fit around my wrist. I was the last to exit. One of the guards started frisking me around my shoulders, and under my arms. As he got to my waist, I deliberately dropped the keys; the guard noticed and also heard them hit the floor. In that split second, hoping that the distraction would break his concentration, I bent down and, as I picked up my keys, apologised and walked away so that he never got the chance to search my private parts. Whether by divine intervention or a stroke of luck, I succeeded in avoiding what could have turned out to be something of a disaster. The punishment for being found in possession of a mobile was six months in solitary confinement in shackles.

  Luckily for us, they didn’t find anything in the entire downstairs section, although I’m not sure how well they searched the General. There was no way he wouldn’t have had a mobile with him.

  The raid had been organised by Bangkwang’ s own security section, so they weren’t as thorough as outside guards; I suspect our room had been their prime target. I was sorry for Mikhail and the British guy, who had lost their mobiles down the toilet, and which by then had probably made their way through the sewer system into the vaults where the shit was stored. While we waited outside for the guards to finish their search, Joseph stayed far away from me, but he kept staring at me questioningly, his eyes expressing his concern about the fate of his mobile. I gave him a wink. Slightly perplexed, he returned a smile of acknowledgement, obviously hoping that somehow all was not lost.

  The guards had ransacked our cells. Our belongings were thrown all over the show, beds were taken apart and pillows torn open. What pissed me off the most was that they had walked all over our beds with their shoes. After we had brought some semblance of order to the room, Joseph came and sat on my bed. By then I’d already slipped the dog out of my underpants and wrapped it in my dishcloth. I smiled at him. Then I slid the dog over to him. He stared at it in disbelief and I could see that he simply couldn’t comprehend how, firstly, I had managed not to get caught, and, secondly, that I hadn’t had to dispose of it. Talk about defying the odds! Somebody up there must love me. Our other cellmates were equally impressed, but I declined to give my secret away. All I said was that I had left the dog in the side pocket of my haversack and hoped for the best.

  Chapter 15

  The Dog, a Prisoner’s Best Friend

  Nothing had come of Linda Mti’s visit to Bangkwang in 2003. In my view, the whole thing had been a huge waste of taxpayers’ money. Mti’s vision of signing a prisoner transfer treaty with Thailand had started to take shape when the Minister of Correctional Services, Ben Skosana, publicly announced that his department was looking at drafting a policy to enable the government to repatriate the more than 600 South Africans held in prisons around the world. However, following South Africa’s national election in April 2004, Ngconde Balfour replaced Skosana at Correctional Services. Balfour was said to be addressing the issue of transfer treaties. With all these public announcements, one would think that something was being done to turn them into policy, but in fact nothing materialised. I couldn’t understand it. What was going on? Did our government really not give a fuck about its citizens?

  Almost a year back, the ambassador, Mrs Pheto, had expressed an interest in using my art as part of the celebrations to mark South Africa’s ten years of democracy in 2004. She had even commissioned me to do paintings of the Thai King and Queen. This was exciting for me, and inspiring, besides which I thought that perhaps some public exposure of my talent would attract attention to our plight. In the beginning my hopes were high. Perhaps the Thai government, in an act of good faith and to strengthen diplomatic ties with South Africa, would even release all of us South Africans held in Thai prisons on the milestone occasion of ten years of democracy in my home country. I knew it was a long shot, but it was this kind of dream that sustained my enthusiasm and helped me to endure prison life.

  When the Indian Ocean tsunami hit at the end of December 2004, I was already barking my dog regularly. Concerned friends who had never been in Thailand kept asking me questions, like whether we were safe and if the tidal wave had reached the prison. We were so far inland I thought this was funny. Some of the prisoners in Bangkwang, however, lost family members, and my heart went out to them.

  Meanwhile, with the clampdown and rising prices of drugs, alcohol had become the favourite high, but yeast had become increasingly difficult to bring into the prison. Suchin had gone on a course and Watcherine had taken over the foreign parcels. He was no pushover, and it would be hard to deceive him. Joan, who had no idea we were making wine from the yeast (she thought we were using it for baking!), agreed to send me some from home. My instructions this time were for her to buy a variety of spice and tea sachets, as well as different brands of yeast, which came in similar-size packets, and to put them all in a plastic bag, the logic being that Watcherine would recognise the tea and not bother to check the individual packets. My logic was spot-on. It worked like a charm, and from then on I had people from different parts of the world all sending me ‘tea’ in their parcels. My Russian friend Yegor also got clever. He had his family send him packets of instant soup; in the same-size packaging they also sent him sachets of yeast, which he sold for up to 2 000 Thai baht.

  Yegor had bought a small house behind the second chief’s office and in front of the gym, but he had failed to drop an envelope for the Building Chief. This was standard procedure; if you owned property, you paid the ‘tax’. If you ignored this rule, which, by the way, was also a direct disrespect for the officer, you would quickly find yourself in trouble. Any violation of the rules would mean your immediate removal to another building. The guards would go so far as to set you up and they would seize your property and sell it off themselves. When Yegor first arrived, he seemed like an amiable guy and he and I became good friends. He spent a lot of time in my house with Jonnie, eating our lunches and drinking our wine. His wife often posted him parcels, but Yegor never shared anything with us. He would rather have cockroaches and ants eat his food than hand it around. It wasn’t that I wanted or expected anything from him, but in appreciation of our hospitality and for the use of the dog, I thought it would have been nice of him just to offer.

  One night in the cell, soon after lockdown, I had not even unpacked my haversack when I saw Yegor waving to me. He held up his hand and made a sign – baby finger stretched out and thumb up – that he wanted to use the dog. I chose to ignore him and didn’t respond. In prison, one hand washes the other and Yegor needed to learn that. That night, when I gave him the dog much later than I usually did, he sensed that something was wrong. Another problem with Yegor was that when he spoke on the phone it was very loudly; you could hear him in the corridor. The key-boy was permanentl
y on the lookout to bust somebody. I warned Yegor a few times to be careful and also told him that I was not his ‘boy’, that I was doing him a favour.

  Anyway, a few days later Yegor, Mikhail and myself were walking to the cell when out of the blue Yegor said to me, ‘Why is it that all Jews are stingy?’

  What fucking chutzpah!

  ‘Yegor,’ I said, ‘in my life I have never met a selfish Jew, but you know what, though – I have met one fucking stingy Russian.’ Before he could say anything, I went on to add that the entire Jewish religion revolves around charity and doing good deeds. It’s impossible that a Jew could be stingy. Yegor had no comeback to that, but his days of using my dog were over.

  After this unpleasant incident, we barely spoke to each other. Then Yegor’s house was raided by the building guards. They had been aware that he was selling yeast, but all they found was the leftover stub of a marijuana joint. This was something you could normally pay your way out of, but they were after Yegor’s house. He was in trouble and he knew it. He came to me and told me he was selling his share of the gym to Philip for 8 000 Thai baht, thereby doubling his investment. He knew Philip and I were not on speaking terms either, and that I would pay in the money because I could never have Philip as my partner. That afternoon, Yegor was moved to Building 3. In a way, I was sorry to see him go, but, after his anti-Semitic comment, I got a bad taste in my mouth whenever I saw him.

  Shortly after Somsak was murdered, the General was transferred to the hospital, where he was given a single cell formerly used to isolate the crazies. I was sad to see him leave for many reasons. I had no doubt, though, that security would be tightened in Building 2, and I was right. After the General left, Veesarnou became obsessed with clearing all mobile phones out of the building, and regular raids were conducted upstairs. Guards who found phones were offered the reward of promotion.

  Sleeping in the centre of the cell was another British guy whom we’d nicknamed ‘Flea’ because he was so thin. He was a junkie and a talented musician and I really liked him. Flea was a dog keeper. This meant that the owner of the dog paid him money to risk bringing it into the cell at lockdown and taking it out in the morning, so usually Flea himself only got to bark the dog around midnight. Believe it or not, Flea would hide the dog up his rectum, first covering it with two condoms, which were freely available from our first-aid room. One morning, around 1am, I was woken by the sound of muffled conversation. The sounds were coming from Flea’s direction. If I could hear him, there was no doubt he could be heard in the corridor and the key-boy was the number-one informer. He had already ratted out every dog handler in the corridor, and those guys were now sleeping in solitary. Anyway, Flea had a blanket over his head and was lying on his back, one leg pulled up and the other crossed over the top with his foot vibrating. How fucking obvious can you be? The following morning I reprimanded him, explaining that he was endangering all of his cellmates and that he should be more considerate. That night, again I had to get out of bed and kick Flea to lower his voice. He was due to transfer to a British prison soon and didn’t give a shit.

  Every morning, I was the first to wake up and the first to exit. When the steel doors at the entrance to the building were opened, the guard would hand the keys to the key-boy, who would then open the individual cells. The guard would either walk away or wait outside. I would always be waiting at the door to get out. A couple of days after I had warned Flea, the steel doors to the downstairs section were opened slightly earlier than usual. I thought it strange, but did not suspect anything out of the ordinary. I stood waiting, with my haversack over my shoulder, my water cooler in one hand and my dog, which was in a small zip-up pouch, in the other. This time the key-boy didn’t open the first cell; he came straight to ours. By the time I realised what was going on, three guards had rushed past me into our cell, Veesarnou leading the charge. I stood to one side, letting them through. Flea was still fast asleep. The guards went straight to him, while I got the fuck out of there as fast as possible. I quickly went to my house and hid the dog in its kennel (hiding place). Then I went back to the cell. They had caught Flea red-handed. Before they took him away to be shackled, I told him that he couldn’t say I hadn’t warned him. I also told him that when they investigated his case, if they asked him where he’d bought the dog, he should say that Commodore Veesarnou had sold it to him for 10 000 Thai baht. He should say that he’d paid the money but then Veesarnou wanted another 5 000, which he’d refused. And that was why Veesarnou came to catch him.

  Flea had nothing to lose, and so he did exactly what I’d advised. Veesarnou was investigated. I don’t know what the outcome was, but, after that, his attitude towards prisoners changed drastically. And he never bothered our cell again.

  As with so many things in life, good things never last too long. In prison, things could change from one moment to the next. Not too long after Flea got busted, around midday one day a group of three Thai civilians, dressed casually and accompanied by Veesarnou, were seen walking around the building. They were looking up at the roof. Then they went into the cells. The office clerk, Keng, who was my friend, was well informed of everything that was happening in the building, so I went and sat around outside the office, hoping that he would make conversation with me. When he saw me, he came over and asked, ‘Whatz up?’ This was what he always said. ‘Min dun’ (The same), I replied. Then, switching to English, I pointed to Veesarnou’s group, who seemed to have finished their surveillance, and asked what was going on.

  Keng told me they were installing signal blockers, which meant we would soon be unable to use our mobiles. News travelled around the building like wildfire. The dog handlers were devastated. Within a week, machines were installed outside every third room, in the corridor in the centre of the ceiling, and also at three-room intervals on every corner of the building just under the roof. In no time, the system was up and running. The prices of mobile phones dropped dramatically. There was no way you could get a signal inside the cell, but outside and away from the building, down the other end where Chinatown was, one could still bark the dog. The property prices on that side immediately shot up. The houses were open and only small walls divided one from the other. It was risky, though, because anybody walking past could see what you were doing. Mikhail had his place there, and he would climb right into his locker (a small cupboard), close the door and use the dog in there. It was a tight squeeze and very uncomfortable, especially with the heat. Shlomo also had a house there and was kind enough to allow me to use the dog in the event of an emergency. For me, the risk was too high, and from then on it was only occasionally, maybe on a Saturday, that I would call my sister. Fortunately, I still had my two five-minute calls a week at the office.

  Some of the dog handlers would still bring their dogs to the cell every night, hoping that by some miracle they could get a signal, but it was no use. To be suddenly cut off from the outside world was quite traumatic for us. The atmosphere became tense and the dog handlers walked around with long faces. Arguments broke out and led to fistfights.

  The signal blockers were housed in protective boxes. Each machine had a green light and a red light. Red meant the machine was not working, and green that it was. If both lights were on at the same time, it meant the machine was faulty.

  There is always a positive side to every negative. With the installation of the signal blockers came benefits, one of which was that I started to get a good night’s sleep. Another was that I was no longer putting myself at risk of being caught on a mobile phone, and, instead of spending all night texting, I got back into reading books. There was only so much TV I could watch.

  After about three months, the system started to break down. As if by a miracle, the red and green lights kept coming on at the same time, and this allowed us to reconnect with our families.

  At 3.30pm, the usual time for lockdown, when we entered the cells a guard and two Blue Shirts would stand at the door. One by one, they would check our things. Prisoners carried t
heir food in steel pintos, and plastic bags were filled with items they planned to use to pass the time during the night, which might include listening to music on an MP3 player or watching a DVD. Regardless of our choice of entertainment, our things were all thoroughly searched. Some guards were lazy and would let you pass without checking, and it was always prudent to find out who was on the evening shift. If it was one of the more stringent guards, one who liked to conduct a full body search, for example, then I wouldn’t risk walking the dog.

  Watching movies was always a favourite pastime for most of the foreigners, and this led to the formation of a movie club. My DVD collection now stood at well over 600 titles. I also loved a good series. My all-time favourites were The Sopranos, Prison Break and Heroes, although Heroes kind of lost the plot by season two. One or two guys had DVD machines that you could hire for a night for 100 Thai baht, including a movie. Almost every day I had people come and ask if they could borrow my DVDs. I gave them with pleasure, the only condition being that they looked after them and made sure they didn’t get scratched. As always, though, there were those who would abuse the privilege, and these guys got blacklisted.

  One thing that was impossible to avoid in prison was swearing. Every second word that came out of your mouth was ‘fuck’ or ‘motherfucker’. We prisoners were an embittered species and swearing somehow empowered us and made us feel better about ourselves. It was our way of keeping the hatred and anger alive. As I evolved spiritually, this became a real concern to me. My new year’s resolution would invariably be to stop swearing, but actually, if the truth be told, this was more difficult even than stopping smoking. They say effort produces results, but only time would prove whether that was true.

  Changing times kept biting us in the arse. Another new Director, who liked to be referred to as Commander Sophon Thitithammapruek, had somehow heard about our illegal satellite TV, and an order was sent to our Building Chief to remove and break both the decoder and the satellite dish. The guards from our building were not very happy about this, as they also enjoyed watching TV during their night shifts, but there was nothing to be done but obey the order. The Blue Shirts were given the honour of breaking our dish and smashing the decoders. Life after that became unpleasant, especially for us football fans, who avidly followed European football and the English Premier League. We were locked up in our cells for over 15 hours a day, and boredom and depression walked hand in hand. The nights were hot and long. I had watched many of my own movies more than once. Shlomo and I organised more of the latest movies and TV series to be sent to us from home. Our families would send the discs to one of the guards I’d befriended, and he would smuggle them in for us for a fee. Whenever I watched, I would connect the main TV to my own so that everybody else could watch, too.