Journey From the Summit (8 page)

On the way home I sat on the back of Adam’s bike thinking about all he had told me. Hearing the story and how tough it was for all concerned had given me food for thought and consequently a sense of inner strength and purpose.

Chapter Eleven

As humans we are adaptable, and I for one was no different. As strange as my situation was, I settled into a lifestyle in Goa.

The four of us moved into a small, two-roomed stone cottage not far from the beach, surrounded by coco palms, banana trees and grass. A small red veranda served both as an outdoor seating area and an entrance porch.

We had no running water but shared a well with the house opposite. Each morning we would draw a large bucketful from the well and leave it in the sun through the day, so we had warm water to wash in in the evening. We all had to be very frugal with the water, as one bucket would have to provide for all of us. We would take it in turns to stand in a little enclosure at the back of the house and pour water with a little cup over ourselves – this was the closest thing we had to a shower!

A little enclosed shed with a hole in the ground served as the toilet. Wild pigs would grunt their interest while you went, and act as waste disposal units afterwards – hence eating pork in Goa was something we quickly learned to avoid, for obvious reasons!! It was certainly a sobering way to live. Our beds were meagre cotton wadding mattresses that went lumpy after a few nights and meant you woke feeling stiff and sore most mornings. Sleeping bags crudely sewn together from cheap sari-silks bought at the market doubled as mosquito nets as they were thin enough to pull over your head and still sleep.

Daniel and I quickly became like brother and sister, thrown together by our circumstances and having no choice but to share a room, we would argue or laugh according to our moods. It didn’t seem awkward living with him, we knew we had a common love for Saul that bound us together in a way that made us like siblings almost from the outset.

The day after we moved into our new house, the boys went off into town to run some errands on Adam’s bike, and left Cathy and I to settle in and make our house more of a home. After giving it a good sweep through, and washing the floors we went out to pick flowers and collect shells from the beach. We burned joss sticks to hide the musty smell of the place and opened all the doors and windows wide to let the gentle sea breeze blow through.

We heard the boys coming back on two separate bikes and wandered outside. Daniel was grinning from ear to ear, clearly pleased as punch to have his own bike.

“What d’you think Floss?” he asked still sitting astride the Honda Hero. “Fancy coming for a spin?”

“Yeah, why not!” I said jumping on the back.

He took off down the dusty track and opened up the throttle, picking up speed. Soon we were tearing along and I clung onto him, feeling exhilarated but also a little panicked.

“Hey this is great, isn’t it?” he yelled back at me.

“Yeah,” I shouted above the roar of the engine.

“I’ve never ridden a bike before!” he shouted excitedly.

“Oh my god, Daniel! You are kidding! Slow down!” I cried.

Daniel laughed and carried on at top speed. The more I shouted, the more he kept pushing the bike faster down the sandy lanes. Finally he turned the bike around and drove us home at a more sedate speed.

We got back and he dismounted his new toy, laughing happily.

“Wow! That was great wasn’t it Floss?”

I looked at him and sighed, not quite sure how to answer him! He was like a big kid, with such a sense of fun. I knew he was actually quite responsible, but he certainly had a crazy streak!

Although I was there in Goa, as near to Saul as I could possibly be, it was hard to understand what it was like for him inside the prison. He had described it to me as best he could and would often tell me tales of things that happened inside, mostly bad but occasionally good too. However, he had intermittent nightmares about his time in Bombay, and some of the stories he told me made me sick with horror.

One day Saul was looking especially tired when I arrived to see him. He said he had been having nightmares again, which wasn’t surprising with the sleeping conditions being what they were. The nightmares seemed to be sparked by an experience he had had in Bombay – one he had not told me about because he thought it would upset me. Nonetheless, I pushed him now to tell me what was prompting them.

“We had to witness a man being tortured,” he began quietly. “He was only a young man – I think he may have been of Nigerian origin. They brought him in with a coffee can of heroin, and he was flatly denying it belonged to him. He was claiming to be a dental student on his travels and that it had been planted on him. We were in our prison cell and they took him into the office, of which we had full view. Although we knew it would be unpleasant we were compelled to watch, but really were not prepared for what we saw.

They had him laid on a bench with a thick stick of bamboo across his shins. Two guards stood either side of him and began to roll the stick down his shins, pressing down hard on each end as they did. They were trying to wring a confession from him, and this was how they saw fit to do it. He screamed so loud Flossie. His screams reverberated through the cells chilling every one of us to the bone. We shouted at them to stop, but they carried on, ignoring us. We were powerless to do anything. Finally they got what they wanted from him and stopped inflicting their agony on him. They half carried, half dragged him back to the cell and threw him to the ground where he lay emitting a pitiful mewling, like a beaten animal. There was no skin left on the front of his legs, just a bloody mass.”

I sat frozen to the spot as Saul told his gruesome tale. His eyes were far away as he spoke; seeing the terrible scene as it replayed in his memory. No wonder he was having nightmares. I held his hands, staring into his eyes, wiling him back to the present. “Saul,” I said gently. “I know that what you went through then, and what you are going through now is incomprehensible to anyone on the outside, however hard you try to explain, but you have to try and let it go. Tormenting yourself with these terrible memories is not helping you babe. You have to stay strong – you have to try and calm your mind, so that you can sleep well, stay rested, and be the best you can be while you go through this.”

So easy it was for me, who could sit there spouting platitudes, and then walk out into the sunshine. I felt nothing short of useless. How could I help him when I didn’t really understand what he was going through? I could only be there for him whenever I was permitted to visit, and try to console him as best I could. I wrapped him in my arms and held him tight, trying to infuse him with love and strength, and we sat like this until I was told to leave.

When they took him away, back to his cell, I realized that it was back into a world that I had no part of, no way of shaping or even understanding. I could almost feel the draught of change as he walked back into what for him was his everyday life.

Silently I sent out a thank you to the powers that be, for at least letting this place, this jail, be somewhere that was a cooler version of the type of hell he knew.

Visiting Saul became the focal point of my routine. Everything else was scheduled around my visits. Every day that I was allowed to visit, I did. Some days I would arrive at the prison and be told I couldn’t see him, even though it was visiting hours. The reason for this was usually because they knew how desperately visitors wanted to see their friends and family, and how much the prisoners relied on those visits for their sanity, and they played on this as a way to extort money – the term for this was ‘baksheesh’, and it soon became apparent that every time I visited I would have to hand over a few rupees if I wanted to be let in. Having travelled a fair distance, usually by motorbike in the hot sun, this was more than frustrating, so every time I paid up to ensure my visit was honoured.

Not only did I have to pay for my visits, but also, if one of the boys couldn’t take me, I had to pay for a taxi, which was also usually a motorbike. This was not only expensive but also restrictive as it meant I could really only go there and back, and if I needed to do any shopping or run errands too, it became a very expensive way to get around. Consequently, it was decided that Cathy and I would get bikes of our own! The boys had their motorbikes so we hired TVS bikes. These were smaller scooter type bikes, which you pedalled to start. The pedalling fired the ignition, and finally the motor took over. They never went very fast, but as you weren’t required to wear any protection when you drove one, it was probably just as well.

There was a market every day in Mapusa, the nearest town to us, but Fridays drew vendors from further afield as well as the everyday local trade, making this the best day to go. Cathy and I would generally go together on our bikes and buy some basic groceries for the week.

The market was a hive of activity. Every conceivable patch of space was taken up with stalls, mats, or rugs, with people selling their wares. There was barely enough room to walk let alone to buy produce. Rows and rows of brightly coloured, luscious looking fruit and vegetables, aromatic sacks of golden spices, dried fish, bread, terracotta pots, clothes and jewellery were all crammed into the market place. The smell of spices, mingled with sun-ripe fruit and fresh flowers filled your nostrils as you wove your way through, and stopped here and there to barter with the sari-clad vendors.

It was really cheap to buy material from the market and take it to a local seamstress, who would produce a dress or a top for you in a matter of hours. This proved a valuable service, especially for me, who really hadn’t thought to bring clothes to wear to court, so I had a couple of respectable dresses made for next to nothing.

When we weren’t in court, visiting Saul, or doing everyday chores like washing and shopping, we were on the beach. Our house was about a three-minute walk from the nearest beach, so we could just amble down the sandy path through the trees and, in no time at all, we would be on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. We would lie and soak up the sun, taking dips in the ocean to cool ourselves. The beach sellers would come around, with heavy baskets on their heads, selling slices of fresh pineapple and coconut, and sarongs and cheap jewellery. Mostly we would try to discourage them as their persistence could be infuriating, but occasionally, when the mood took us, we would barter with them for their ‘best price’ and make a purchase.

Then there were the busloads of Indian men who would come on day trips to the beach from Bombay. At first we thought, in all innocence, that they were coming to enjoy a day out at the beach. We soon found out that they came to take photos of bikini-clad or topless Western women to sell back home in Bombay! Horrified at their audacity, we would rush to cover ourselves whenever we saw them, trying to protect our modesty. They, however, saw us as fair game, as they believed if we were on their beaches exposing our flesh, that it was quite legitimate for them to take photos of us. If their own women, by contrast, had the good fortune to come and spend a day at the beach, they paddled in their saris in the sea, never exposing more than their midriffs. Because their men were not used to seeing the female form in its uncovered state, the photos they took were worth money, so for them it was a business.

One such day, Cathy and I were lying on the beach dozing in the sun. We had our tops undone as we lay on our bellies, tanning our backs. Cathy opened her eyes to see an Indian man happily snapping away at us, with no shame. Before I knew what was happening she had leapt up, clutching her top to her chest, and started chasing the unsuspecting man down the beach, somehow managing to fasten her top as she ran. He was fast, but she was fuelled by anger and soon caught him. She grabbed the camera from around his neck, opened the back, removed the film and flung it into the sea. He stood there open-mouthed, probably never having seen a woman behave like that in his life. While she screamed obscenities at him he stood with his hands up in an attempt to quell her rantings. I, on the other hand, could not stop the tears streaming down my face as my sides burned with irrepressible laughter!

Hours could be spent doing something as simple a posting a letter, buying a bus ticket or making a phone call home. It was an exasperating business. You would be queuing for hours, often in the hot sun or inside a stifling building with pathetic ceiling fans. The staff in these places had the attitude that they would serve you when they were ready. If they chose to eat a sandwich or chat to a fellow work colleague about personal matters, you would be ignored. The more you showed your mounting irritation, the more they saw fit to make you wait. It was like this everywhere – it seemed to be their own brand of bureaucracy. Customer service was something totally alien to them. Dealing with officialdom in this country was the ultimate test of your sanity, and did not differ between establishments; if you needed to do something major like extend your visa or visit a prisoner, you had to be prepared for it to take the whole day.

We spent most of our nights sitting under the stars or sometimes going to parties. The beach parties went on from dusk until dawn. The music would change from a lively rave to a more trance-like subdued beat as the first rays of sunlight touched the morning. Everyone partied all night, dancing beneath the palm tree canopies, becoming absorbed in the scene that many had come there to find. Although the parties were a great distraction I felt myself remain on the periphery, never quite managing to fully immerse myself in the atmosphere the way everyone else was. Still, I allowed the music to work its hypnotic magic on me and my heartache lost some of its intensity, if only for the night.