Forty Days at Kamas (24 page)

"Looking back on it, I think Doug knew very well what he was getting into when he joined the Department. I remember how desperately unhappy he was after being wounded and how he brooded that his Army career was over."

"And was he surprised at what State Security expected from him?"

"If he was," Martha replied, "I don’t recall that he showed it. In fact, what worries me sometimes is how well Doug has adjusted to it. It doesn't seem to matter at all what they tell him to do as long as he can hold onto his rank, bonus pay, free house, and car. It’s as if he’s given up on himself and has let them take over his life."

"Have you told him how you feel about his working for the Department?" Helen asked.

"Not in as many words. I've told him how I think he's changed but he doesn't want to hear it."

"Do you love him?"

Martha took a deep breath.

"Frankly, I'm not sure anymore that I ever did."

"Then why on Earth did you marry him?"

"I ask myself that nearly every day. When I met Doug he was handsome, witty, affectionate, fun to be around—just about everything I wanted in a man. And he adored me. He was so dogged about asking me to marry him that I didn't know quite what to do. I told him I didn't think I was in love with him but he said not to worry–, that it would develop with time. Except it hasn't. I still care deeply about him, but I'm not in love with him. The trouble is, it's a little late now when we have a child and another on the way. And then the business about the girl in camp had to come up…"

"Actually, that's one of the reasons I came here to see you," Helen said. "I asked my contacts in the women's camp about her. It hurts me to say it, Martha, but what they told me appears to agree with what you learned on your own. It seems that Doug has been seeing a young nurse's aide in the camp by the name of Gwen. They meet in a private examining room at the dispensary two or three times a week.

"Whatever they’re doing, it’s not medical treatment. Gwen isn't qualified for that. And even if she were, there's a separate staff dispensary where Doug would normally go if he needed treatment. More than that, since the trysts started, my sources tell me Gwen has received special privileges that would be impossible without a high–level protector.

"Martha, what I'm saying here doesn't prove anything and I would be the first to tell you that it's not enough to support a decision to leave your husband. But I do know that the only way you're going to know if it's true, other than catching him in the act, is to ask him about it."

"These women you talked to…" Martha pressed. "Are you sure they have no ulterior motive?"

"I can't rule it out," Helen replied. "But they’re decent, honest women who appear to pity Gwen more than they envy her. They’re the ones I’ve relied on for years to distribute free herbs and vitamins in the women's camp. I trust them completely."

Martha stood up, paced back and forth several times, then crossed the room to her desk and returned with her purse.

"I don't know what to say, other than to thank you."

She removed all the money from her wallet and handed it to Helen.

"I'd like you to take this to buy more vitamins for your women. It's my own money, not Doug's. It would mean a lot to me if you could help someone with it."

When Helen didn't move, Martha tucked it into the pocket of Helen's coat.

Helen rose to leave.

"It's nearly six," she noted, glancing at the clock on Martha's desk. "I'd better say goodbye to Claire and be on my way."

"I'll call her," Martha said. "And thank you for all the help you've given me. After I've had time to think, I’d like to visit you again at your cabin some time to talk some more."

"Anytime," Helen answered.

Martha called up the stairway for Claire, who came down promptly with Marie in a fresh diaper. They conversed for a minute, then Helen gave Claire a hug and picked up her baskets to leave.

The moment she took a step toward the door the doorbell rang. Martha looked out the peephole.

"Oh, my God. It's the Warden," she said, panic rising in her voice. "What do we do now?"

"Let him in," Helen answered in a whisper. "I was delivering the herbs you bought, remember? And if anyone noticed how long I was here, it was because I showed you how to use them."

Martha opened the door. Helen stepped out as if she had been unaware that anyone was waiting on the doorstep.

"I'll have some new items in a few weeks, Mrs. Chambers," Helen announced in a businesslike voice as she walked past the Warden. "Come by the station some evening and I'll show them to you. Meanwhile, take good care of yourself and the baby. Good night."

Fred Rocco watched Helen step past him with the puzzled expression of someone who recalled having seen her face before but not quite remembering where. Before he could make the connection, Martha Chambers ushered him inside.

"Doug's not home yet. May I fix you something, Warden?"

"Please, call me Fred. I'm off duty."

"Of course, Fred. Bourbon?"

"I'd love some. Just a touch of water and lots of ice."

Martha led him into the kitchen and filled his glass with ice while he donned his bifocals to scan the newspaper lying open on the counter.

Not far away, in the breakfast nook, Claire spoon–fed Marie in her high chair.

"Do you know that woman well?" Rocco asked, fixing Martha with a sharp look over his spectacles.

"I buy homemade breads and herbs from her sometimes. Why do you ask?"

"She comes to the women's camp now and then to peddle her junk. Her husband used to be a prisoner. I've had a hunch for some time that she exchanged messages with him somehow but we were never able to prove it. At any rate, there's no chance of that happening anymore. Her husband was shot last month while attacking a guard. Good riddance, too. He wasn’t the kind of prisoner we could ever allow on the streets again, believe me."

Martha's hand shook as she topped off the bourbon with water and stirred it with a spoon.

The warden watched her closely and gave a contented smile.

C
HAPTER
22

"Some [trade unionists] are crying that they were beaten. Yes, you will be thoroughly beaten!"
—Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean dictator

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1

The May Day holiday fell on a Wednesday. In keeping with tradition, even political prisoners were excused from work.

After roll call, the warders divided the newly arrived criminals into groups of fifteen or twenty and led them to their new barracks. The group assigned to Barracks C–14 consisted for the most part of young gang members and assorted delinquents between the ages of sixteen and twenty–five, with none over thirty. Nearly all were urban poor, evenly mixed among Hispanics, blacks, and whites.

The warders entered the barracks ahead of their charges, announcing that our new barracks–mates were real Americans, not traitors like us, and that we should treat them with respect.

"Watch how they live and follow their example," Grady lectured us with his usual sneer. "Maybe you'll learn something about how real men handle themselves."

And to the young criminals: "It's about time we had some red–blooded macho Americans like you to keep these traitors in line. You can count on us to back you to the hilt."

The criminals stayed close together as they made their way down the aisles toward the rear of the barracks, ignoring vacant bunks as they went. When they could go no further, they gestured for the existing occupants to vacate the last three rows of beds. There was a moment of uncertainty while the occupants considered whether to defend their bunks and the thieves considered whether to take them by force. Then the confident voice of an older prisoner spoke up.

"Come on, let's show these men some hospitality. Let them have their own area in back if they want it. You guys in back, come on up here with us. There's plenty of empty billets."

And rather than begrudge the newcomers the bunks they coveted, the politicals at the rear of the hut gathered their belongings quietly and moved to vacant bunks closer to the entrance. An uneasy quiet prevailed as the new arrivals took their places.

But the quiet was quickly broken. On a bunk adjacent to those of the criminals, an emaciated political used a homemade knife to whittle a tiny bear from a block of wood. A slender youth with a wispy mustache and goatee crept up behind him and snatched the knife away.

"Go make yourself another one, old man," he said as he retreated with his prize to a third–tier bunk.

Not far away, a compact, muscular youth eyed a bespectacled prisoner reading a paperback novel and made a beeline for it.

"Let me see that," he said, but only after he had already torn it from the startled man's grip. He glanced impatiently at the cover, then tore a handful of pages from of the middle and tossed it on the floor.

"What kind of bullshit book is this, anyway? Who's got some porn around here? Come on, you limpdicks, hand it over!" He scanned the other bunks within range for more reading material.

The political prisoners turned their backs on their new neighbors. Most had learned in the transit camps that when the thieves crossed the room to torment and plunder, it was best to surrender whatever they wanted and offer no resistance. If it came to blows, the thieves would defend each other to the death while the politicals cowered and left their fellows to meet their fate alone.

To the thieves, fighting was a way of life and an essential survival skill. No blow or trick was too foul or underhanded if it offered a tactical advantage. The thieves flaunted their brutality to intimidate the politicals, who abhorred violence both in principle and in practice and lacked the stomach to hit below the belt, bite, stomp, gouge an eye or break a nose, even to save their own life or that of a close friend. The result was that, whenever politicals mixed with thieves, any sense of unity or camaraderie among the politicals broke down and every man was left to fend for himself.

In Barracks C–14, however, we politicals outnumbered the thieves by a margin of at least five to one. Like many of my neighbors, I was prepared to fight if I had to. But I was not inclined to start the fight and risk facing the thieves alone if no one joined me. Before I could decide what to do if one of them attacked me, a scuffle broke out two rows away.

A pair of thieves in their late twenties sat down on either side of the youngest political prisoner in the barracks, an eighteen–year–old high school student who had been arrested for publishing an article in his school newspaper critical of Unionist officials in his town. The student looked panic–stricken. My instincts told me that they were sizing him up for rape. I looked around me to determine whether anyone else had noticed and whether I would be alone if I came to his defense.

To my surprise, Brian Gaffney was already on his way. At six feet three inches and nearly two hundred pounds, he was one of the strongest men in the barracks even after his stay in the isolator. Before starting his career as a commercial artist, Gaffney had once worked as a lumberjack and had also crewed on commercial fishing vessels off the Alaska coast. Gaffney faced the two thieves and spoke to them in a low voice.

In an instant, both thieves jumped him. I hesitated for a moment, then rushed to his aid, grabbing one of the attackers around the throat and tossing him back into the thieves' corner. Two politicals blocked his return while Gaffney dispatched the other thief with rapid–fire punches to the face. The rest of the thieves were ready to fight but were held in check by a handful of politicals separating them from Gaffney and his opponents.

Gaffney stood, flushed with anger and dripping blood from his nose and mouth. He looked around the barracks and saw how few of his fellow politicals had supported him.

"You people are pathetic! Here we are, seventy–five against fifteen, and you're willing to stand by and let these punks humiliate us? When are you finally going to stand up for yourselves?"

Before anyone could speak, I heard the hard rap of a wooden nightstick swinging against a bunk. It was Grady. He and Mills had watched the entire fight without intervening. Now the two warders swaggered down the aisle toward Gaffney.

"It's back to the isolator for you, pal," Grady declared.

Mills circled behind Gaffney and pushed him toward the door while Grady raised his stick to strike. Suddenly a hand darted out from a top bunk and snatched Mills's hat from his head. Another pair of hands reached out from beneath a bunk and untied his bootlaces. Mills didn't know which one to attack first. Another hand reached out from a mid–level bunk and slipped Grady's pepper spray out of his breast pocket.

"Hey, give that back or I’ll…"

There was a faint hiss and Grady screamed as he raised his hands to his eyes. The next spray hit Mills. Both men fell writhing to the floor. The thieves instantly went to work stripping the warders of their boots and coveralls and dragged them out of the barracks into the yard. Their hats, nightsticks, boots, pepper spray, and the contents of their pockets disappeared.

The thieves tossed the empty coveralls back to the disabled warders and disappeared into the crowd that had gathered outside. Nothing like this had ever been seen in Kamas. Before long, a squad of guards came along and carried Grady and Mills off to the dispensary. But the prisoners who had seen the attack on the two warders talked about it all day long, wondering aloud why the thieves would have come to the aid of a political whom they had battled only moments before.

At lunch I fell into line behind Jerry Lee and Steve Bernstein, the Long Island drug salesman I had met on my first day in camp. As a four–year veteran of the camp system, Bernstein had lived among thieves in a variety of transit camps. He also had an ear for gossip. We took our seats at a table at the rear of the mess hall. Bernstein pointed out the table where the thieves sat.