"My Prison-Cure in America", Chapter 16
Adapted from Annemarie Schwarzenbach, by Cleo Varra
Read previous: #15. Everything Around Me Had Been Alive
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WHITE PLAINS, NY-- 1941
How did I stop at last? When did this happiness stop?
When did I realize that I had to return to captivity?
Of course, I had no choice. I couldn't have stayed in the forest, I would have starved or died of thirst. I couldn't have stayed in the city, without the police finding me there. There was no border I could have reached. Incidentally, they would have detained me and handed me over across the border, because I did not have my papers.
I think back to that nocturnal wilderness as if I had been standing on the threshold of paradise. Perhaps because of the sleeping animals, who did not harm me, and had not feared me, if my passing step had woke them. I had been so safe, so safe, so full of innocent courage, a child of God.
And then they had pursued me.
I could not pretend I had a stronger position, and I had to give way.
*****
After I had been returned to the hospital, a friendly administrator asked me: “But why run away in the first place?— You’ve gotten two guards dismissed, and a nurse. You have only made your situation worse.”
I said, “Please, don’t worry that I’ll run away again! I know I’ve broken the rules, and that there have to be consequences. I understand everything perfectly.” (I had humiliated myself!)
After a long silence, I had continued: —“If you were locked up,— if you were in trouble— wouldn't you try and escape? If nobody would listen to you! If you were lost! — If you had nothing else left. And a door opened. Would you have any concerns?”
He said: “I can’t imagine ever being in such a position.”
***
I would have liked to shout, “What about the hundreds, I don’t know how many, the thousands of people living in your prisons every day? — Just feeling scared! Just feeling judged! And such judgements can kill, but you, you wicked and cowardly man, you can't ever imagine? Oh, these poor people!”
But I’d fallen silent instead.
I’d stopped after one syllable, as if the words had slipped my mind, or as if my voice choked. And the administrator said “Calm down”, and he offered me a cigarette.
I took it quickly, and I tried hard to smile.
*****
I walked back into the hallway and I sat down in a chair, exhausted. I sat as close as I could to the exit door. I put my head back, and remained as still as possible. Through a barred window at my back, I could feel the cool breeze of darkness outside.
A nurse looked up, and turned to me briefly, as if only seeing me now. “It's six o'clock,” she said.—
“We’ll bring the food in to you soon. Patients are not allowed to stay in the hallway during distribution. It's best if you go to your room now."
Of course, I wasn’t hungry. But I walked back immediately, past the guard who made room for me.
After walking for a little bit down the hall, I stopped to listen. I could hear a torrent of voices, screaming. But I didn’t cry. I was going back to the ward, and I would try to find my bed. I would stretch out.
But a hand fell on my arm.
"You'll sleep alone tonight”, said somebody behind me, the nurse again. She didn’t add anything else.
As I followed her to the solitary cell that awaited me I thought, if only I could tell her how indifferent I am to all this. I was having trouble getting to my room. It was a long way down, past six or more cell doors.
I walked in, and saw at once that the narrow windows had double bars behind wire netting. You could still look out, and I stood for a while and watched a foggy meadow that sank and then disappeared, as if there world had ended. Maybe a river lay below, or a valley fanned by trees. A night watchman walked up and down outside the window.
I turned around, and smiled at the nurse.
She said, "Don't you want to undress? —I'll bring you some food in a moment.” I said thank you, and then when she had gone, I clenched my teeth.
***
They set up a long table in the hallway, and the nurse counted the bowls as they were put down. I leaned against a wall, and I tried to watch. My fists, which I was clenching, were damp and very small.
At the end of the hallway, the nurse was unlocking the door. It would only be a matter of rushing past her through the door, pushing aside the guard on the threshold, and jumping ruthlessly into the darkness— and then, while trays were falling clinking to the ground, then I’d run, I’d run!
Very slowly, I moved off the wall. Sweat was running down my face—
And I flinched.
A line of guards had started moving through the door and there were too many of them, like the ten who had surrounded me and captured me. Those hands on my neck again.…
I took another step forward, and took a deep breath. The guard closest to me widened his stance and said: “You’d better step back up again.”
I stepped back. My legs wouldn’t carry me anymore, and I sank onto the bed.
***
My spine hurt. My knees were shaking, my hands were shaking, and then my lips. I buried my hands in my hair, and groaned.
The nurse came in, and spread a napkin over my knees.
She uncovered a bowl, and the steam of vegetables and potatoes rose. I reached for the spoon, with my eyes still wandering over the walls and the iron bars. I couldn’t think of a single word to say.
And she went away again.
*****
