"My Prison-Cure in America", Chapter 9
Adapted from Annemarie Schwarzenbach, by Cleo Varra
Read previous: #8. As Soon As You Woke Up
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I thought about a man I'd known once, who had been sentenced, on morals charges, to six months in prison. He was a mechanic, originally from Sweden, whom I'll call Jan. Mitigating circumstances were said to have played a part. Otherwise he would have gotten two or three years, at least.
And surely he'd been more innocent than I....
***
He lived under his sentence as if under the spell of a serious illness which had all but removed his ability to speak. Though sometimes he did talk to me-- maybe because I understood his language a little, or because I'd been to Sweden once. “Oh, you know Sweden!", Jan said; that was all, and then he changed the subject.
But he always returned to the same stories, even the same words; and like an old fever breaking out again, the same fears and visions would haunt him.
***
Jan was only twenty-seven years old, and he caught a person’s attention, because in spite of a delicate, innocent and almost beautiful face, his bearing was that of a broken man's. His tanned hands, shaped by skilled mechanic's work and strong, lay on the table between us, motionless as if they no longer belonged to him. His eyes were still alive and wandering around. But they seemed to see past everything, beyond everything; as if he had to avoid everything, and as if nothing were his business.
He said to me, "Of course I know now that one, or maybe several, of my former friends betrayed me to the police. They made statements out of malice, or envy. I don't know-- I don’t understand it.
--If I could still act-- I mean, if they hadn't already denounced me-- I'd happily turn in first whichever of them named me to the police. But I didn't know how to defend myself...."
***
His job had paid well, so Jan was always able to keep a good supply of drinks, and he would invite all the others to spend the evenings at his house. Everybody had liked him.
— “So I still had hopes,” he explained,-- "I had no suspicions of anyone, I had no idea.… --That's how I let myself be fooled. It's not that I expected they would help me. You can't expect much from people, and of course, they had their own concerns. But at least they all knew me. They all knew that I am honest and have no ill intentions towards anyone. It was always my fault, they said, for talking too much."
This deeply troubled Jan, who again fell silent.
***
Jan said that he had never protested, never criticized and never asked questions. He mostly believed that others were justified in their actions. But now he asked himself whether he hadn't perhaps lived like a hermit, like a fool, among all his so-called experiences and didn't really know or understand a single one of them.
— Knowing now that words could be so easily distorted; that there is neither trust nor friendship between people; and that he always had talked too much.
He said,-- "I used to think that I liked everyone: friends, strangers, and the people at home. I made it easy for myself, you see: I didn’t ask much of them, and they couldn't test their feelings for me.
But it's far more natural to have enemies in this world than so-called friends. Isn’t it?”
***
Then I had wanted to cry out: "It's only a law, Jan, it means nothing--” Or maybe I had wanted to persuade him that love is greater than injustice, and able to heal wounds marvelously.... Maybe I hoped I could cheer and comfort him a little. I started: "Jan", I said,-- "I don't know what you’ve done, but why should I care? What would it change? I know you a little."
-- "You don't know me."
-- "All right,” I said, “But I like you. We’re in the same position, we're comrades, so to speak.--"
But Jan turned to face me with an expression of bitter determination.
He said, "You're bothering me now.-- You think that I'm unhappy!
-- And if I should be-- what is it to you!
The world is filled with far worse stories than mine. I still live almost as before: that is to say, like a free person.
And nobody has hurt me!
The guards, poor devils, were always humane with me. They sometimes slipped me cigarettes."
*****
