Charlie, Presumed Dead

I said:

 

How can you be sure it was her?

 

They said:

 

Her passport photo matched perfectly.

 

In her passport photo, Lena had red hair, which makes sense since according to her, she used to dye it all the time. What’s strange is that when I last saw her, just hours before the body turned up, her hair was blond. It’s not much, but it gives me hope.

 

I move from the hole back to the front of the cell. I’ll wait.

 

The problem is, I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get out of this cell, or if they’ll let us out to eat, or why everyone else seems to want to press up around these cold, metal bars as much as I do. Guards walk by us every few minutes but most of them don’t turn, other than to spit or sneer. Mostly, I’m afraid. There are too many people in here, and I have the feeling that if violence broke out, no one would be very interested in stopping it. I can feel the others around me sizing me up, putting me into little boxes. I don’t want to know which boxes. I have to believe the policemen will come for me—realize their mistake—but they dumped me in here to begin with. They threw me into this cell, into the waiting arms of these other women, without even letting me contact my parents.

 

I wait until I can’t any longer, and I push my way back to the hole. It almost doesn’t matter, because I can see that the walls are lined with filth, and many of the women have stains on the backs of their clothing. This place isn’t a prison; it’s hell. My face burns with shame as I pull down my regulation shorts, tug my tunic as far over my thighs as it will go, and squat. The hole is poised just over a plastic bucket; I almost vomit for the second time when I see its contents. I try to focus on my knees, not on the leering faces around me or what’s below. When I do glance up, one girl in particular, young and pretty aside from a jagged scar running the length of her neck, meets my eyes. Hers harden; and before I can straighten up, she moves toward me and gives me a shove.

 

The hole isn’t big, but it’s big enough for a foot to slide down into the excrement below. I claw at the wall next to me, trying to right myself; and I’m just inches from slipping in when a strong hand closes around my wrist and pulls me away from the hole and to safety. Around me, the other inmates are laughing. I pull my shorts the rest of the way up, my ears burning. Tears push their way to the fronts of my eyes and threaten to spill over; but I blink them back, because even I know it would be suicide to establish myself as weak in a place like this. I try to tell myself that Lena isn’t the only one with strength. Lena, if she is alive. Strength, willpower . . . they’re not things some people are born with. They’re entities separate from ourselves, there for the conjuring. You can conjure anything, make your mind believe anything about yourself if you try.

 

“Thanks,” I whisper, even though I’m certain she won’t understand me. The girl who helped me is standing across from me; but in this place, “across” means so close I can feel her breath on my cheek.

 

“You were asking for it,” she whispers back in clear, perfect English. The relief on my face must be obvious, but it just makes her scowl harder. “No, bitch. We’re not friends. I did you one favor. I talk to you any more, I’m dead. That’s the way things are around here. You want food, you want to stay alive, then you gotta be on the inside. You gotta pay your dues.” She turns from me and rattles off a string of Thai to another girl who has wedged herself in close. I try to reclaim my spot near the front of the cell, as far away from the toilet hole as possible, but I meet resistance in the form of arms, legs, and backs that rearrange themselves in front of me no matter which way I move. I get it: I’m the new girl. I’m the one who has to stand in the back. For a second I wonder how long it will take me not to be the new girl; and then I’m overwhelmed by panic. I don’t want not to be the new girl. I want to get out of here before I become that. But how can I, without anyone to talk to? To explain that this is all a horrible mistake?