Dragons & Butterflies

by Shani Krebs

  From my cell I could see them in the Nigerian house. They ransacked everything. They then moved on to my house, broke open all the locks and proceeded to do a thorough search. My dog was hidden in the same locker where I kept my DVD machine and I was as nervous as hell. There were at least six guards searching my house. Besides all the electronics I had, there were also two plastic protein powder containers filled with wine that was still brewing. I didn’t mind losing the electronics; it was my dog I really didn’t want to lose. After a while, I got so nervous I couldn’t bear to watch any longer. I expected the worst, but hoped for the best. As always in times of trouble, I needed help from the powers above. I prayed to G-d and asked Him to close their eyes to where the dog was hidden. The anxiety was contagious and nobody really slept that night.

  The following morning, when I got to my house, it looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Everything was strewn all over the place, even the foodstuffs. My hi-fi and speakers, blender, toaster, sandwich maker, DVD player and every single DVD I had collected was gone. Luckily, my iPod, which had been given to me by a good friend and correspondent, Adi Fredman, which was in the top drawer of my desk, hadn’t been found.

  My heart was beating rapidly. If they had found my dog, I would be moved to solitary confinement immediately. Making sure nobody was watching me – everybody in the other houses was preoccupied with sorting out their own stuff – I checked to see if the dog was in its kennel. When I felt with my hands that it was there, I cannot describe my excitement. I breathed a sigh of relief. Once again, I had outwitted the authority.

  My house was a mess. The bastards had taken one of my backgammon sets, stolen 2 000 Thai baht worth of stamps and 10 000 baht in cash that I had hidden in a book. They also took my books on semi-nude photography. One thing that surprised me was that, although they had obviously detected the wine – one of the containers had been opened – they hadn’t thrown it away. This was prison, nothing was sure; your situation could change from one moment to the next. There was nothing you could do. At least I still had my dog; that was all that mattered. My guardian angels were still keeping an eye on me.

  We had to do something, however. I discussed various courses of action with the other foreigners, emphasising that the first thing we should all do was complain to our embassies. It wasn’t that I was hopeful we would get anything back, but it might deter future raids. Later that morning one of the Blue Shirts came to me. Apparently, one of the guards who had raided the previous night was head of security, and he had been on duty in our building after the raid. He had told the Blue Shirt: ‘Aleksander tam lao dee’ (Alexander makes good wine).

  The South African consular staff, when they heard what had transpired, were supportive and wrote a letter to the Department of Corrections asking what had happened to my personal belongings. The Department of Corrections always preferred not to have any negative publicity or to get on the wrong side of the embassy. The official response was unequivocal: I had been found to be in possession of illegal items, and under no circumstances would these be returned. This didn’t surprise me. It was the response I had expected. Many prisoners had lost their things. And everybody knew that when you bought an electronic gadget, it was a gamble as to how long you would enjoy the privilege of using it.

  Over the years, the Cripple had become an integral person in the lives of many of us inmates. He had spent the past 14 years gambling his life away on just about everything, from backgammon to football to death row executions. You name it, he would put his money on it. The Cripple slept in front of our cell. Whenever he was up on his winnings, he became irritably loud and arrogant; when he lost and was down and out, you never heard a squeak out of him. Money in prison meant power. Most of the Asians had a similar mentality. You would know exactly when a person’s money had arrived from home by their tone of voice. One warm April afternoon in 2008, soon after we were locked in our cells, the Cripple buckled over and had a heart attack. Fortunately, the key-boy managed to alert a passing guard and the Cripple was loaded onto the wheelchair and rushed to the hospital. For a few days we didn’t hear anything and, to tell the truth, I kind of forgot about him. Then, after about a week, I asked one of the Chinese if they had any news; I thought maybe the Cripple had died. I was told that he was now paralysed down his left side but that, by some extraordinary miracle, he had regained mobility in his legs. The Cripple was now hopping around on crutches!

  The motherfucker, I thought to myself. He had been faking his paralysis for 14 years! On the one hand, you had to admire the man. I was sure he was gambling on the possibility of being granted a medical royal pardon. On the other hand, more dangerously, he was gambling with fate. A true gambler to the end. At least he was alive. I decided to go and visit my old rival, so I filed a request saying I had an ear infection and needed to see the doctor. When I reached the ward, the Cripple spotted me before I saw him. Excitedly, he pulled himself up with one arm and waved me over. In a half-stutter he called, ‘Alec! Alec!’ Next to his bed was a single crutch. As I reached him he said to me in broken Thai, ‘Do, do, pom dun dai’ (Look, look, I can walk). Then he hopped off his bed, grabbed his crutch with one hand, the other arm dangling lifelessly against his body, and hopped along the ward. It reminded me of when I had a broken leg and my friends called me ‘Hopalong Cassidy’. I smiled at the Cripple and, pointing my finger at him, said ‘Kun zig zag,’ which was Thai slang for being deceitful. He pretended not to hear me. I then added, ‘Kun keng muck’ (You are very strong).

  But the Cripple would never be the same again. He now had a speech impediment and had lost about 60 per cent movement on his left side. His tenacity was impressive, though. When he returned to the building, hopping around on one leg with the aid of his crutch, he was determined to regain his strength.

  One day in early August 2008, after eating almost a whole kilo of buffalo, rice, potatoes and broccoli topped with cheese sauce for lunch, I was relaxing on my deckchair, as I usually did after lunch, when suddenly I got this severe pain in my chest. It went shooting right through to my back. At first I thought maybe it was indigestion, so I struggled to get to the toilet. Nothing happened. The pain got worse, and then I collapsed in my house. Shlomo happened to come by to visit me and saw me sprawled out, pale and in pain. I told Shlomo that I thought I was having a heart attack, so he ran to the office to inform the authorities. They were reasonably quick to react. With the help of my Nigerian brothers, I was loaded into a wheelchair and shipped off to the hospital. It seemed like we crossed oceans to get there. I can’t really say what was going through my mind. I had heard that when people are close to death their whole lives flash before them, but all I could think of was that prison was not the place where I wanted to die. Did we ever get to choose? Surely this couldn’t be Hashem’s plan for me? What about my poor mother, whom I hadn’t seen since before my arrest; she lived for the day that I would be free. My death in here would surely kill her.

  When we reached the hospital, I was taken to one of the rooms that was used as a theatre. While I was lying there, one of the nurses came to ask me what the problem was. The pain was really bad; I honestly thought I was going to die. At that moment, I thought of my family and tears began to run down my cheeks. I was thinking how hard it would be for them to accept my passing. ‘Mai tong wrong hai’ (Don’t cry), the nurse told me. She seemed sympathetic, even understanding in the way she looked at me, but I don’t think she could relate to what was going through my mind. I began to recite the Shema Yisrael, begging Hashem that I was not ready to die, not here, not in prison and not now. There was still so much I wanted to do and to see, so many dreams to fulfil.

  An electrocardiogram was conducted and the doctor made a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, a common form of cardiac arrhythmia. I was admitted to the hospital and put on a drug called atenolol, which slows down the heart. I was given a bed close to where the medics cooked their meals. Prison hospital was a depressing place. Nobody really cared about you. Even th
e doctors were prisoners; I knew for a fact that two of them had murdered their wives. Imagine being treated by a killer. Could they have any empathy at all, I wondered. It was something I couldn’t quite come to grips with: from saving lives to taking a life. How did that work? And now my life was in these doctors’ hands.

  I was told I would have to stay in hospital for at least ten days so that they could monitor my condition. The atenolol had dropped my pulse to 16 beats per minute; I was also given aspirin to thin the blood. The one doctor explained how it came about that I had an irregular heartbeat, and he pointed out that the chance of my having a stroke was very high unless I changed my eating habits. He suggested I cut out all oily foods, coffee, meat and anything fatty, and bring down my cholesterol level. That night I couldn’t sleep, not only because I couldn’t remember when last I had slept in a bed, but also because something happens to a man when he has a near-death experience.

  The medics who worked in the hospital cooked for themselves, while the patients who didn’t have money had to eat the prison food. The smell of food, as well as being surrounded by so many sick people, some of them on their last legs, was very depressing. Prisoners were dying here; the death rate in prison hospitals was high. I decided I couldn’t stay there another day. I needed to get back to the building. So I told one of the orderlies that I wanted to see the doctor, who agreed to discharge me the following day.

  Behind the main reception area of the hospital were two fishponds the size of tennis courts and a beautiful lush green garden with banana trees. I was starving. Situated near the back was a flat-roofed building that housed the second chief’s office and a small coffee shop that handled the food ordered for the hospital workers and prepared meals for the guards. One of my mates, a foreigner who worked at the hospital in the pharmacy section, arranged a meal for me. For the rest of the day, I paced up and down a path between the two fishponds. I felt myself beginning to relax. Just being out in the fresh air in the garden reminded me of home.

  The next morning, I returned to the building. I immediately changed my diet and from then on ate only steamed vegetables and salads. In fact, I started a salad club. There were four of us. One person ordered either a kilo of tomatoes, carrots, green peppers or long beans every third day; the rest – lettuce, cucumber, baby corn, etc. – I provided. This enabled each member to have a healthy-sized plastic bag of salad every day for three days of the week. I would prepare up to ten packets a day and give the balance to my friends. The rest I would keep in two of my coolers, in which I kept two bricks of ice. My weight dropped from 90 to 73kg within a month. I stopped gymming completely and instead jogged five days a week. I also went back to playing football. And I stopped drinking alcohol.

  At the end of August, after attending the Beijing Olympics, my long-time friend Penelope, along with her new boyfriend Ivan, popped in for a visit. Penelope had been sending me parcels every year for my birthday since my arrest. Ivan and I had an instant connection, and it was great to see Penelope again. They stayed a couple of days in Bangkok and visited me every day, buying me a fortune in healthy foods, such as almonds, raisins, prunes and healthy crackers. They could not have come at a better time. They also deposited a substantial amount of money in my prison account. It gave me such a big lift. It was wonderful to know that there were people who genuinely cared. When they left, Ivan vowed that he was going to make it his life’s mission to try and secure my release. He also promised me that if there was anything I needed, he would take care of it.

  Before Ivan and Penelope’s visit, I had heard that a friend of mine from school, who lived in the US, had met with certain Israeli politicians to find out whether there was any possibility of my being granted Israeli citizenship. Apparently, a former head girl from King David, who had been my contemporary, had also attended the talks. I was constantly amazed; the world was such a small place. I had friends all over. Sadly, the Israelis wouldn’t budge. There was no way they would agree to giving a foreign prisoner citizenship.

  Since Jai had left me, I hardly had any visits, which in fact I didn’t mind. However, occasionally there were people who came from abroad to see me. One such instance was that of the Fishers, an Australian couple and their daughter. They had read my stories in the Arcadia book, and, while they were travelling in Thailand, decided to come and meet me. They were very nice and compassionate towards my circumstances. I think people generally are fascinated by prisoners and the whole concept of prison. And they were especially intrigued by the fact that I was Jewish, as not many Jews were serving life sentences in prisons.

  Louise, the wife, and I started communicating by letter and, later, on Facebook. She told me that she had a heart condition, and had had a pacemaker inserted, and still managed to lead a relatively normal life. I was inspired by her. Everybody has a story, and so often, when we get to hear the difficulties others face, it gives us a different perspective on our own lives. Prison may have been tough, but people on the outside faced their own challenges.

  People kept surfacing from all over. Another one was Sandra from Canada, who happened to be the daughter of the Chazan (Cantor) who during my childhood took the service at Arcadia on the High Holy Festivals. Sandra and I became very close, and she would do almost anything for me. I was blessed in so many ways. All these people had one common goal: to do everything they could to make my life as easy as possible in prison. And they achieved it. For me, it was not so much about the material things they sent; it was more about knowing that people cared – we Jews took care of each other. When it came to the people outside, I was still living a lie, however. I wondered whether, if they knew I was guilty of the crimes I was accused of, they would still be as understanding and considerate towards me. I so wanted them to know the truth, that I was guilty, that I had known about the heroin I was smuggling out of Thailand, but I couldn’t say anything. It was not the right time.

  Around this time I was also privileged to be introduced to a group of British women who lived in Bangkok and who had undertaken to visit British prisoners. Among them were Bev Bolton, Yvonne Ziegler (who was in fact Australian) and Gale Isobel Bailey. Bev used to visit a young British prisoner who had been arrested at the age of 21. Hearing that I had no regular visits, Bev also came to see me whenever she had the time, and we became good friends. After the death of her husband, Bev returned to England, but we maintained our friendship through correspondence. She wrote the most beautiful and inspiring letters.

  Yvonne, who used to work for the Australian consulate, was asked by Louise Fisher to visit me on my birthday and to bring me a chocolate cake – what a nice surprise that was! Birthdays, as I’ve mentioned before, were a depressing time for most of us prisoners. When I saw Yvonne with a cake, bringing wishes from my family and my friend Louise, I became quite tearful. These women were simply amazing. At their own expense and in their own time, they had taken it upon themselves to help out prisoners, emailing, messaging their families and helping with money transfers. Whenever there was a birthday, they would bring cakes, wear party hats and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in the visit room. I could only admire them. I don’t think they quite understood the happiness they brought, or the difference they made to us.

  On one such occasion, a friend of the British women, also an Australian, whose half-brother had done time in Klong Prem, was in Thailand to celebrate her birthday. They all met at Yvonne’s apartment for the occasion. With them was a Swiss lady by the name of Elisabeth, who apparently had also been visiting prisoners for some years and was at that time coincidentally visiting one of the South Africans in the women’s prison. Before going out for lunch, they planned first to come to Bangkwang. Knowing that I had hardly any visits, Yvonne and Gayle suggested that Elisabeth visit me while they saw the British prisoners, to which Elisabeth reluctantly agreed. What was the point, she argued, of a one-off visit? Anyway, she came to see me. Apparently, she already knew who I was and had seen some of my artwork. When I arrived at the visit room, I had no idea w
ho it was that was looking for me. Elisabeth was seated near the front, her back turned to me. There were quite a few visitors waiting for prisoners by then. I walked past her and down the entire length of the visit room without recognising anybody. At the end of the visit room were two senior ladies. I waved to them enquiringly and pointed my finger at myself. Puzzled, they shook their heads. Obviously, there had been a mistake so I decided to head back to the building.

  Then, as I approached the last group of visitors, I saw this very pretty woman smile at me. I picked up the phone and she followed suit.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  ‘Hello,’ she answered in a beautiful Swiss accent.

  ‘Are you here for me?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. Then she went on to explain how it had come about that she’d come to visit me.

  I don’t know what it was, but this woman made such an impact on me that, after the visit, I couldn’t think of anything else but her. That night, using my dog, I contacted another South African woman, Anke, who had visited me several times soon after my heart condition was diagnosed. Anke also lived in Bangkok and was seeing some of the ladies in the women’s prison. I asked her for Elisabeth’s phone number. After plucking up the courage, I phoned her. In the interim, unbeknown to me, Elisabeth had emailed my sister and told Joan about her visit to me that day, and also about the impact I had made on her. At first, she was somewhat shocked by my call and not all that impressed that Anke had given me her number without consulting her first.