Harmattan (46 page)

One of the chief guards here, Kwame, a vile man who is not much liked by the inmates, has promised that my letter will reach you if I treat him ‘favourably’, but I intend to find some other means of getting it to you, because I will not allow anyone to defile me ever again.

Gisele hates all of the guards fiercely and makes no secret of the fact. She particularly dislikes Kwame. In fact I think she would gladly take his life if she could get away with it. In some ways we have a lot in common. The first time I met Gisele, she stroked my face and said, ‘Someone has been cruel to you, child, eh?’ and when I told her that it was me who had been cruel and that I had killed my husband, she laughed and told me that she had killed three of her tormentors with their own guns. They were Touaregs who had kept her as a slave in the mountains for many years. Gisele can get away with a good deal more than most of the inmates here, because Kwame has a particular dislike for Touaregs (there are many of them in the male wing). He is quite in awe of Gisele in fact. I might still be in leg irons were it not for her. After I arrived here my shackles were left on for several days, (I am considered a ’dangerous detainee’, due to the nature of my crime) but Gisele demanded that Kwame removed them. And he did. Even behind bars, Madame Gisele is a formidable woman, and Heaven help anyone who makes an enemy of her. Of course, Kwame did not miss an opportunity to assault me as he was removing my leg-irons – running his scaly fingers underneath my ragged
pagne –
but I thank God that both He and Gisele were watching over me, and that she barked at Kwame like a hyena and spat in his face. This earned her several jabs in the ribs with a baton from one of the other guards, but Kwame looked more shaken by the incident than she did.

There are two other women sharing my cell: Veronique and a Hausa woman known as Desire. They have been quite kind to me too, although they seem to be wary of Gisele. Veronique has experienced a great deal of discomfort due to an infected cut above her eye. Gisele says it happened in a fight in the shower block a couple of weeks ago. Veronique is an angry woman. She says that the police were looking for her boyfriend, and when they could not find him, they arrested her. She has been in custody here for three years.

She goes back and forward to the court, just to sign papers, but she is never tried. There is a kind young doctor, who calls to dress her wound now. He was visiting our wing one day to treat a woman who had given birth (the baby was still born) and Gisele had prevailed on Kwame to bring Veronique’s eye to his attention. The first time he came to our cell I was sitting on the floor on a slab of cardboard, examining a scrap of old newspaper that one of the guards had discarded. As he carefully bathed and dressed Veronique’s wound, he smiled at me and asked me if I could read, and then ordered the guards to unlock the cell door so that I could visit the prison’s tiny library and take some air outside in the compound. Later, Desire and Veronique teased me about this man, but I ignored their silly talk.

The next time the doctor came, he brought us a little parcel of guavas and a bundle of books tied together with string, but when we were queuing at the shower block the guards stole the fruit from the plastic bags in which we keep our few belongings hung on nails in the crumbling walls. I knew that he had intended the books for me because none of my cell mates can read, but I felt guilty about looking at them at first because each time I brought them out we were all reminded of the sumptuous fruit that we did not get to eat.

The doctor also gave me a prescription for some medicine for my injured hand, but, of course I have no money to pay for it. If you come from a poor family, life can be hard here. If you have no friends or family, it is worse still. A woman who works in the kitchen with Gisele told me that a boy died in the male wing a few weeks ago because he did not have any money for medicine. He had been sick for three months but received no medical attention.

The guards have to put up with a great many complaints from the inmates, as the director of the prison never makes himself available for discussion. In fact, the guards are suffering too, because although their food is better than ours, and their quarters less squalid, they nevertheless are prone to the same skin diseases as we inmates, not to mention infestations of lice and other parasites.

There are two pails supplied to each cell; one for use as a toilet and the other for drinking water. Ventilation is not good and there is a permanent stench that cannot be escaped. We have limited access to proper toilet blocks, but these are shared with the male wing and we have to clean them with our bare hands.

We are each supposed to receive a cake of soap every second week but, in reality, it is far less often.

Gisele sometimes returns from the kitchen with extra supplies that she gets from the male prisoners and shares with us. I do not ask her how she gets them, but such goods are a form of currency here and some people resort to any means to get them. The food here is very poor, so when Gisele brings an extra potato or some fish paste back to our cell, it is almost like a celebration. We receive one meal a day, usually rice or millet paste or gari or beans. Extra food can be supplied to those whose families live locally.

Desire’s sister occasionally brings her flat breads, which she shares with us, thankfully. Drinking water is not a great problem, although we have to share a single cup and washing properly after cleaning the toilets is very difficult.

Many of the prisoners here have been on remand for many months. Some for years. So, you will understand, Mademoiselle, how fearful I am that my case might be forgotten too.

It was a great joy for me to learn of the little library housed in the male wing of the prison but it is difficult for me to gain access. We have electric light in the cells, but this is switched on only between six and seven each evening. The women’s wing has been supplied with two sewing machines, but one of these has broken recently and there are no technicians here to repair it. We are supposed to get outside for exercise each day, but sometimes the guards keep our cells locked for several days at a time – especially if Kwame is off duty. Thankfully, this does not happen often, as most guards work six or seven days a week. On the two occasions that it happened since I arrived here, Kwame received such a barrage of abuse from Gisele’s vicious tongue that he took it out on the two younger guards who had been on duty during his absence. He lashed out at them with his baton, making sure that Gisele was watching. Of course this did not help anyone in the long run because the two guards in question then took it out on us in turn. In fact, late one night last week, a young woman, two cells up from ours, was molested. She is too frightened to issue a complaint. This incident has worried me a great deal, as you can imagine, (I stil have nightmares about Moussa) but I have some comfort in that Gisele is usually not far away. Without her protection, I would fear for my sanity, if not my life.

My grandmother, Bunchie, used to say, ‘You think the sun sets on your compound alone? Stand up and see how it falls on the entire village!’ How my heart aches when I pass the old people’s cells, on the way to the shower block. There are, perhaps, eight or nine very old women and approximately half as many old men. There is even a married couple. Mademoiselle, I tell you, I thank God that my grandmother never ended up in such a place as this, for these poor souls are truly standing on the shores of Hell. It is not easy for any of us to survive here, but some of these old ones have been here for a very long time – one for over thirty-five years! Most have been on remand for so long that they have given up on their cases ever being heard. Some cannot even remember how they came to be here. Their clothing is little more than rags, and one poor old man, (who claims to be one hundred and twenty years old) has a terrible lump at the base of his belly. Another, who is unable to walk, lies on his mat all day long. Gisele says that a group of lawyers from the city have approached the director and urged him to form an amnesty committee in order to help such prisoners. They seem to have been abandoned by their families, or perhaps they have simply outlived them. They have only death to wait for. At home, in Wadata, such people would be treated with great respect but, locked away in their offensive-smelling cells, they are a sorry sight. I try not to think of them, at night when I am alone with my thoughts, otherwise I might picture myself still here as an old woman, wizened as a walnut, and drive myself mad.

Contact with prisoners from the male wing is very limited, but Gisele’s position in the kitchen means that she hears a great deal about what goes on there. Currently, the director is asking questions about a recently arrested inmate from Nigeria who claims that a wound on his chest was inflicted by the gendarmerie during his arrest. He says that he came to Niamey to visit his family, and was minding his own business, looking for his brother in the market, when he was arrested. We also heard that just yesterday another inmate, said to be mentally incapacitated, tried to kill his cell mate.

We women do what we can for each other when we are sick, but the men here are helpless; their cells are overcrowded and barely big enough for them to lie down at night, and tuberculosis, pneumonia and anaemia bothers many of them. Many of the inmates are HIV positive too. A good deal of these illnesses go untreated, so that at night it is difficult to rest, what with the constant coughing and moaning and the frequent cries of prisoners jolting themselves awake from their terrifying dreams. Until recently the prison had a sick bay room, but several prisoners managed to escape from this area, so the facility is now used only for storing bodies until they can be taken to the mortuary.

A few days ago we were disturbed by a great deal of noise coming from the male wing, and discovered that some of the men were rioting because their clothes had been taken from them before detention, while a European had been allowed to keep his clothes on. The trouble was dealt with quite quickly, but the sounds of men being flogged outside in the main compound was more frightening still. The following day, the anasara’s lawyer returned with his country’s ambassador to collect the prisoner. As they passed through our wing, the lawyer spied me in my cell, curled up in a ball on Gisele’s mat, and spoke to me kindly through the bars. He asked me my name and age and what my crime had been, and told me to be strong and that he would make some enquiries with the director and notify the Nigerien Women’s Defence Association of my presence here. As yet I have heard no news. But I live in hope and imagine myself one day reunited with my brother and sister.

One of my few pleasures here is to be able to read to the other inmates.

Very few of the women can read, so, what with my ability and Gisele’s friendship, I find that I am treated quite fairly by most people, especially now that the television set is broken. (Once again, Kwame has said that if I am ‘nice’ to him, he will ensure that it is repaired.) But the library has very few books and I am not permitted to visit it often. However, I was much in demand recently when a prisoner, who had been transferred back to Niamey from Cotonou in Benin, paid dearly for posting a flyer on the library door. It read:

‘On the eve of the third millennium, at a time when humanitarian organisations have even recognised the rights of animals, there still exist cells of torture in this country, an example of what is Democracy in Africa.

There are limits that dignity imposes on the submission of the most patient spirits.

There are limits to the human state that marks the difference with the animal state…’

He went on to complain about lack of food, poor hygiene and corrupt staff and when a group of Kwame’s colleagues attacked him with batons. He continued to curse and protest and called one of the guards a ‘Son of a whore’, at which point the guard shot him dead. Gisele says that the case has been brought to the attention of the authorities, but that the dead man’s family have decided not to pursue the matter in court, presumably because they are too poor to do so.

I seize any opportunity I can to get out of the cell, if only for a short while.

The stench is deeply unpleasant, what with the plastic pail that serves as a latrine for all four of us and the overflowing dustbin in the corner that cries out to be emptied. In all, there are ten proper toilets and two shower blocks serving the entire prison. I have counted fifty-seven of us in the female unit (this includes minors, such as myself, and babies born in the prison). Gisele says that there are over eight hundred males here too. When the guards are carrying out their duties as they are meant to, we are allowed out of our cells before the men. But despite the fact that our numbers are much fewer there is always a great rush to be first in the queue. And even when they are working, the showers have to be cleared of fat black cockroaches in the morning. When we step onto the concrete floors we have to be careful not to tread on these creatures, and the sound of them scuttling away into the corners, to escape the cold water, is very unsettling.

We are plagued by lice and mosquitoes. The lucky few possess – and manage to hold onto – mosquito nets but, for the rest of us, night time is a time of irritation. Veronique managed to bribe one of the guards for the loan of some scissors, and has been busy cutting our hair short, to combat the lice.

Sometimes I stand on an upturned Sprite crate to look through a small, barred window, high up in the wall of our cell and watch the male prisoners exercising, or praying in the courtyard, but this occurs perhaps only once or twice a week; like us, the men are kept locked in their cells most of the day.

Still, I find my existence here preferable to living as a slave to Moussa and Doodi. I have asked God for His forgiveness for my questioning His wisdom, and for my weakness and desperation which led me to take another’s life. But perhaps He will only help me if I first forgive my earthly father for the misery he has brought upon our family. And yet I cannot.

Mademoiselle Sushie, I ask you, as a true friend; if you can help me in any way, please do so. I remember and cling to your words of encouragement as I hold on to life itself. Of course, I long for freedom, but even news about my brother and sister (or Miriam, or a few words from you or our friends in Ireland) would give me strength. I fear no one even knows or cares that I am here. I had hoped that Madame Yola might have visited me, but most probably she has not been allowed to do so by Doodi. My neighbours in Yantala, the Kwao-Sarbahs, had a letter delivered here, but it was so censored when I received it that it might just as well have been only the envelope!