By the time they come for me, I haven’t slept for days. I’ve eaten only a few crusts of bread and a tiny bowl of rice, half of which I scarfed down before I realized it was maggot-infested. That almost wasn’t enough to stop me. Almost. My hair is lank and greasy and my scalp itches. That’s how they find me: scratching my scalp, huddled in the fetal position toward the back of the cell. By now I don’t even bother to fend off the other women. No one’s tried anything violent or extreme, but they like my whiteness. They like to touch my hair and skin, to provoke me: pull at my clothes and pry open my eyelids with their fingertips.
Some of them are crazy. Some of them regularly soil their clothes. Some pluck cockroaches off the floor and eat them whole. Some are dying of infected wounds. One moans so much and so constantly. Her leg is black with what looks like gangrene. She is clearly out of her mind with shock and pain and delirium. Still, no one comes for her.
It’s why I’m so surprised when they come for me.
It’s a woman, a Westerner. She approaches the cell, flanked by two guards. She calls my name. At first I think I’m imagining her. Conjuring her with my mind just like I’ve conjured any small bits of strength I still possess. Everything feels like a nightmare; my concept of reality has shifted since I left the airport. It seems impossible that I ever saw the inside of the Taj Hotel, ever sipped wine with Lena in a Parisian café or sat idly sketching in my tablet in the window seat of my suburban Illinois home. It seems strange and funny that college ever existed, ever mattered to me at all. The thought of it makes me laugh so hard, so loud, that I forget I heard someone say my name.
The guards bark it out again—“Aubrey Boroughs”—along with a flurry of angry-sounding words in Thai. I half drag myself to a sitting position. Some of the other women are hissing, and one kicks me. I scoot away, but my body feels like lead. I’m weak and nauseated. I think about standing—I try—but I collapse back onto the cold stone floor.
Then the girl who helped me before is yanking me to my feet and hauling me to the front, where the American woman’s eyes are narrowed with concern. “I’ve never broken my rule until now,” the girl says. “This is your only chance. Don’t be an idiot.” She gives me a hard shove toward the gates; the guards yank them open, pull me out, and slam the gates shut against the pulsing throng of bodies. So many of the women are listless. They’re dispirited, ruined. But a few are fighters, and they’re the ones who reach their arms through the bars even as the tallest of the guards beats them with a long metal club. They cry out, but they’ve felt it before; their bruises and scars say as much.
I allow myself to be shuffled down the dim corridor toward a small, barren room; and it’s only now that I understand the magnitude of this prison and its horrors. My cell is just one of hundreds, the people within it a couple handfuls out of thousands. It was easy to miss when I came here in the middle of the night, half dazed with exhaustion and panic.
“Hello, Aubrey,” says the woman, once I’ve been seated across from her on the opposite side of a low-lying wooden folding table that seems to have been set up for our meeting. A large window lines the wall to my left; it overlooks what appears to be the guards’ station. A few of them are kicked back in their chairs, watching TV, their feet propped up on the desks in front of them. Others appear to be sifting through paperwork. Some civilians sit in chairs in a separate, sectioned-off area, the tops of their heads barely visible from where I sit. “I’m Dr. Paulson,” the woman continues in a clear American accent. “I conduct psychological evaluations for Western women in the prison.”
“Dr. Paulson,” I start. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything about Lena or Charlie. Please. You have to believe me.” She holds up a hand to silence me, and her expression remains unchanged. But she beckons over a guard and speaks to him in perfect Thai. He turns; and a few seconds later he comes back with a bottle of water, which he offers to me. I accept it eagerly.
“I’m here because there have been some developments in your case,” Dr. Paulson explains once I’ve had a chance to drink some water. “You know by now that you’re a primary suspect in the events that led to the death of Charlie Price.”
“I didn’t—”
She holds up a hand to stop me, her voice firm. “Please don’t interrupt until I’m finished,” she instructs. “And remember, all of this is being recorded. It might be in your best interest to remain silent.” I swallow hard, and the tears I’ve been holding back for the last several days—it’s hard to tell how long I’ve been here—begin to spill over. Dr. Paulson’s face remains impassive. “You’re also being charged with the murder of Lena Whitney,” she tells me. My stomach lurches, drops. “You were formerly only a suspect, but the prosecution has since had a witness come forward. She’s given them a motive, and they’ve found the murder weapon. It’s a pocketknife with your prints on it. There were strands of your hair on the victim’s clothing. DNA tests confirmed it.”