He tears at his dreadlocks like a mad, naked beggar. I stare at his skinny legs, strangely adolescent for his broad chest.
SIT, I command him.
Tamba sits. I perch on the corner of his bed, write quickly, Some of the prisoners are also innocent.
Tamba stares at my white pad, distressed.
Help me to free some.
He leaps up. ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ His torn hair sails from his fingers to the floor. Some kind of vacuum sucks it into the corridor. ‘I told you, if I screw up, I go straight back to prison.’
I write desperately: I will NEVER say you helped me! I underline NEVER three times.
Tamba prowls around my notepad, re-reads my plea. I catch his hand, pull him to sit again. I keep my eyes off the red trickle, for if I look at it I will be sick all over my only writing instruments.
The journalist, Samuel. Sentenced in Algeria. They blamed him for a bomb but all he did was film it.
Tamba leaps up, turns in a circle.
The girl, Lolie. Kidnapped when she was ten. They smothered her with a plastic bag to make her shoot the enemy.
Tamba wipes frantically at his face, claustrophobic. ‘Stop!’
I attack him relentlessly. What did they do to Dominic?
‘Idaho State Penitentiary for Serious Psychiatric Disease.’
How do you live with it?
Tamba hooks his feet on the bed frame and rubs at the punctures. ‘I’m battling, Malachi.’ His voice cracks, lets his tears through. ‘He was cool, Dominic.’
I strike while he is vulnerable. You know how you feel about him?
Tamba raises his arm, wipes his face with the soft inner flesh of his bicep.
Multiply that by forty. I dare to look him in the eye, now that he has erased the blood. You will be half a man. Every day hiding from the other half. It’s a life sentence.
Tamba pinches at the needle marks on his arms. ‘Better than California State Prison.’ He leaps to his feet. ‘I can’t take the risk!’
Their ghosts will have supper with you, sleep with you, follow you to the toilet. What will you do then, take more drugs?
Tamba crumples onto the cabinet. ‘I’m an addict, Malachi . . .’ His watery tears don’t even have the decency to form droplets.
I crawl on my hands and knees, collect the white pages strewn around the room. I tear them into tiny pieces. They can go to the same place as my shattered Nokia. Let the sharks eat my futile plea. I crush the paper strips between my palms, walk towards the bathroom.
Tamba talks to my hopeless spine, ‘The only way is to shut off the power.’
I stop in my tracks.
‘You’ve got three seconds before the second generator kicks in. The cages will unlock for three seconds. All of them.’
I turn slowly to face him.
‘The power switch is under my stairs. Second one from the top. All you have to do is lift the cover.’ Tamba stabs a finger at me. ‘They’ll catch you, Malachi. The whole deck has cameras.’
Uh uh. No. There is one blind spot.
Tamba leaps off the cabinet. ‘Romano will kill you.’
I reach for him, still clasping my torn petition, but he dives away from me.
‘I don’t want to know!’ He stops at the concertina door. ‘If you tell me, I’ll bust you.’ He slams the door behind him. I listen to the gushing tap, my hands still in prayer position.
What must I do with my broken words, eat them?
I glance at my timepiece. 6.55 a.m. I drum on the bathroom door. Tamba slides it open, his chin dripping. I thrust our tattered conversation into his wet hands. As he takes the torn paper, I grab hold of his hand and pull it to my lips. Kiss it. Tamba jerks his hands back, his face a mask of wet shock. He drags the door shut.
I smile ruefully to the ancestors who might be watching me. I forced my love onto a single tip of Tamba’s thumb.
6.56. No time to get dressed. I lift an arm, sniff. I smell strangely like fish. I glance down at my shabby angel’s attire. There is a streak of oil on my shirt from the sewage pump. I rub feebly at it. I have no time to wash or dress like a hero. I must be punctual. Now, more than ever, I must make no mistakes.
I slide Meirong’s deck key beneath my mattress, the most original hiding place in human history.
* * *
I hurry along the corridor to the canteen. Must I free all of them?
Josiah. The rapist. Must I save them too? They deserve this slow death, surely.
What of Charmayne, and the fat Australian? If I free them, I will be aiding and abetting the life of murderers.
I try to remember the judge’s list. Samuel, Andride, Eulalie, Lolie. My darling Vicki. He said any free country would give them asylum. The others would surely go straight back to their old jails. I stumble down the three random steps.
One thing I know is, no matter what happens, they will never be able to scrub off their skins. Josiah’s Seleka worms will continue to lay and hatch, lay and hatch inside his anus. The priest-burner’s melted fingers will marry him to the priest every time he reaches out to press an elevator button, touch a lover.
Tamba comes thumping after me, his Jesus sandals flapping. He is still zipping up some white jeans, his father’s broad chest still bare. He tugs a cream-coloured shirt over his head. We walk one behind the other wrapped in a terse, silent contract that says, The last ten minutes?
They never, ever happened.
* * *
Romano is sitting with Meirong at the breakfast table, looking belligerent. The two of us make sure that our eyes don’t crash. Meirong is in a tight-fitting white dress, like a nurse in a pornographic movie. Her lipstick is too thick, too red. She chose the colour of the prisoners’ blood on cutting day. Insensitive. Her hair has
