even hold hands for a moment and this depressed us a lot even though we were happy to see each other but not in that inhuman humiliating depressing way and sometimes I’d get into a furious rage before the visit knowing I’d see her there behind the glass and that we’d have to talk through the glass without being able to touch not even a finger
again I was overcome by that feeling of hatred I’d had other times before the blood rose to my head a violent desire to kill the guards any of them right there and then with my bare hands if I dwell on it it’s as if I can still feel it now even after all this time well I wasn’t expecting that visit because China had come just the week before it had been a lovely visit we’d talked about so many things made plans because I believed I’d get out soon right after the trial and so I was touched now thinking about that unbelievable journey that she had to make for me every time a thousand kilometres to come and see me and every time another thousand kilometres it was unbelievable but after all that visit wasn’t to take place in the end because of all the havoc that was to come
Monday came no it was Sunday it was afternoon exercise time in the morning there’d been a search but oddly unlike the other routine searches this search had been a bit tougher than the rest and the guards had also done a strange thing they’d left because there the symbolic runs right through these things through the searches and such things it’s a matter of giving reciprocal signs and so the sign they’d left this time strange to interpret strange for me that is without any inkling of what was going on while the guards probably did have and no mistake because they had a nose for the mood of the moment there was this sign we found it there on the table when we got back up to the cells after the morning exercise
they’d left on all the tables in all the cells in all the dormitories they’d left all the objects everything in the form of a box a receptacle a tin a bottle in other words all the containers they’d put them there on the tables from boxes containing detergent to ones containing coffee or sugar to bottles of oil and shampoo all the boxes all the containers the bottles they’d left them there on the tables as if they were hinting at something or other I realized what it was only later to begin with I didn’t pay much attention the fact of finding all these things lined up there on the table surprised me and then later when I went for the afternoon exercise it also surprised me to find out that the same thing had been done in all the other cells too
so I remember that the atmosphere of that afternoon exercise was particularly tense there was an atmosphere you could cut with a knife and what I thought in the light of earlier situations I’d been in and experiences I’d had I thought somebody was going to get done in because there was a lot of tension and you could see it in the air you could feel it in so many things in a strange silence that was different from usual and especially from the looks quick rapid looks that passed suddenly between some people as they were walking up and down and then the thing that I surmised and that must have been on their minds a stabbing or at any rate the settling of some score or other and I was expecting it to happen any minute something like what I’d seen other times before like once shortly after they arrested me and it really upset me at the time
that time it happened as we were exercising outside as usual when three or four non-politicals because we exercised along with the non-political prisoners these non-politicals went up close behind another non-political they went up close to somebody exercising there like them and from behind they put a noose round his neck a knotted steel wire they put this noose around his neck from behind and two of them took his arms they held his arms tight to keep him from moving and they pulled the noose it’s this system that’s used to immobilize someone during a stabbing for it isn’t as easy as it seems to stab someone so that the blade can get deep enough into a vital organ but it can happen that the person survives even after twenty or thirty stab wounds
it’s not easy to stab somebody it’s not as easy as it might seem I mean it’s easy to stab him but it isn’t easy to kill him because besides he isn’t just going to take the stabbing without putting up a struggle he struggles he wriggles he goes wild he thrashes all over the place it’s very difficult to hold him still I mean and one of the techniques is precisely to put a noose around his neck first to pull it until he half loses consciousness because he’s nearly choking and in the meantime you stab him with the knife pushed up from below because wounds angled down are less effective you have to push the knife up from lower down and most important you have to try to aim for a vital organ maybe just under the sternum here
and so they put this noose around his neck and the others held his arms and the one behind him started pulling the steel wire noose but the steel wire noose broke or it’s more likely that the knot was badly tied anyway it snapped or it worked loose or I don’t know anyway they didn’t succeed in pulling it tight round his neck of course he was terrified because he knew at once what they had in mind trying to get a steel wire round his neck but as for them after a moment’s awkwardness they treated it all like a joke all the more because they hadn’t brought out the knives yet the knives hadn’t appeared yet
so they were making a joke of it they were slapping him on the back saying so we gave you a fright as if it was all a joke but he didn’t believe it was any joke he didn’t fall for it at all because besides you don’t play jokes like this in a prison if someone plays a joke like that on you then you’re the one that murders him because these are no jokes then the guy went over to the exercise yard gates and he started to yell to call the guards to let him out and that was when the ones who were after him realized that either they went for him right then or the guards would arrive and it would all become trickier and if he managed to get out in time they’d never get him because then he’d obviously be transferred or shoved into the isolation cells anyway he wouldn’t be showing his face there again that’s for sure
then just as the guards were running to see what he was yelling about four or five of them jumped on him with knives with blades skewers and they started stabbing him all in a muddle and obviously he put up a fight he didn’t just stand there and let himself be stabbed he was kicking trying to shield himself to wriggle free and he took quite a few stab wounds before he fell to the ground and all the while screaming and the guards were rushing about the exercise corridor they could see what was happening but they didn’t come into the yard there was a sergeant yelling from behind the gates cut it out cut it out the whole scene lasted a few seconds the others were at the far end of the wall we were all there all at the far end watching without a move the whole scene lasted a few seconds
he was screaming and screaming like a lunatic then he was thrown down on the ground not just thrown he fell on his knees and just then he was stabbed two or three times with a skewer down on his head just like that with the skewer down on his head and just as he turned his head a skewer another stab with the skewer caught him right in the eye a skewer caught him right in the eye a skewer stabbing right into his eye and he was really screaming in an unbelievable way then he fell down on the ground then when he fell down on the ground they kept on stabbing him trying to get him in the heart because they kept on stabbing him in the chest but they were stabbing him in the neck too they were trying to tear his neck open
the blood he was on the ground with the blood gushing out of him from every one of the holes from all the wounds from all the cuts he had from his head from this eye with blood coming out of him all over the place it was a lake of blood it was a pool of blood that must have been ten feet wide really and he wasn’t moving any more with that eye that was a red stain with one eye half out and the other gaping and he seemed dead and he wasn’t moving any more he seemed dead he wasn’t moving even a finger then they stopped and went back to where everyone else was at the far end of the wall of the yard and the guards opened the gate a little because the guy also happened to be only a few feet away from the gate they took him by the feet and they dragged him out
6
But meanwhile time was going by out there and nothing was happening and when the time came to go up because we were exercising in the volleyball court but no one was playing volleyball they were all walking up and down
