THE BUS FINALLY left the A20, slowly navigated the roundabout----a traffic circle from which numerous roads branched off----and took a local road. As they neared their destination, the guards, safely ensconced behind a secure door at the front of the bus, insisted on quiet.383Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIUTC0q4wK0
Lindsay hadn't spoken in some time. An unceasing tremor vibrated throughout her body. Otherwise, her glassy eyes just gazed forward.
The bus rolled up to a set of big, ornate gates, built in a bygone century. From a small booth raised ten feet off the ground, like a tollbooth on stilts, a prison guard nodded at the driver and punched the button that opened the gates. Mischa watched them close behind them as they entered the facility. She was now in prison.
The bus passed by an open area that Americans would call a prison yard, if a yard consisted solely of asphalt. It was more like a sidewalk the size of a football field. About a hundred women, most congregating in groups, most of them smoking cigarettes. Some were kicking around a soccer ball. Others strolled the perimeter, next to the twenty-foot fences.
The prison was mostly brick, five stories tall, all of the inmates housed in the top four stories. It was divided into four blocks----A through D----one of which approaching as the bus came to a halt. They were already greeting the new arrivals, waving pieces of cloth through the barred windows or dumping garbage to the ground.
The four guards on the bus rose. Two of them got out. The other two unlocked the cage separating them from the four actresses and ordered them all to their feet, row by row. They got out without incident. The air outside was cold and dry. The odor of food permeated the air. Chicken soup, Mischa hoped.
Outside, as they marched single file toward the main building, the jeers from the prisoners through their cell windows drowned out pretty much everything else. Much of it Mischa couldn't make out, either because it was French spoken too rapidly, French slang she hadn't picked up yet, or another language altogether. But she did catch some words, like assassins and le president and Monte Carlo. They were clearly the star attraction of the incoming prisoners.
They walked through a little courtyard toward a nondescript building that looked just like any other government office. As she was in the middle of the pack, Mischa waited outside while the first people entered the building. Guards walked alongside them, sizing them up, intimidating them. They were all women, although some of them were more masculine than many leading men Mischa had worked with in the movies. They were dressed in navy-blue uniforms and tall black boots, each carrying nightsticks and cans of pepper spray at their waists. Mischa looked up at the barred windows, where the prisoners continued their taunting and garbage throwing. The guards didn't seem to give a shit. They probably liked it. Whatever put the newbies in their place, from the get-go.
Up ahead, the same woman began wailing again---"Ou sont mes parents?"-----and her legs buckled. None of the other prisoners moved. But the guards quickly took notice. One of them had her nightstick raised before she reached the prisoner. "Ou sont mes parents?" the prisoner cried before the guard slammed a vicious blow across her back. She fell to the asphalt and kept up her desperate sobbing. Two of the guards kicked her repeatedly, each blow a sickening whoomp against her torso, followed by a pained grunt. They didn't stop, even after the prisoner was quiet and motionless. They were going to kill her!
"Cut it out!" Mischa shouted.
"This is---interest to you?"
Mischa jumped at the words; a guard had snuck up from behind, suddenly only inches from her. There was the harsh tang of a tobacco blend, unlike any Mischa herself had ever smoked, on the guard's breath.
"Wha---what?"
"This is interest to you?" The guard had a wide face, with a thin scar along her right eye, and a crooked nose.
"That woman---you're hurting...."
Suddenly, Mischa felt a searing pain in her ribs from the end of the nightstick. She tried to keep her wind and her balance but failed at both. She doubled over to the ground, breathless, her condition aggravated by years of cigarette smoking. The prisoners, from their cell windows, roared with approval.
The guard yelled something at Mischa but she couldn't hear her over the shouting. She looked up at her and she swung the nightstick, as if it were a tennis racket, into her ribs again. She couldn't breathe and tried to blink away the black spots forming before her eyes. She braced herself against the asphalt and pushed herself up. The nightstick slammed down on her back and she collapsed again, chin first, to the hard surface.
The guard was yelling again, instructing her, but Mischa couldn't understand her, and it was now clear, she wasn't going to win no matter what she did. When she stayed down, she hit her. When she pushed herself up, she hit her. When she looked at her, she hit her.
The bloody bitch was apparently playing to the crowd, to the prisoners peering out their cell windows and egging her on with their cheers. She batted Mischa around as a kitten would a mouse, striking her repeatedly on her back, her arms, her legs, and her ribs.
Mischa stared at boots, thick, black and scuffed at the toe, taking the abuse until at last another guard came over and forced her to her feet.
"Ne me regardez pas!" the first one shouted, only inches from Mischa's face. This time she caught it. Don't look at her. That much she'd figured out.
The guard stood so close to Mischa that her nose was touching her cheek. "C'est une prison francaise, vous ne parlerez que le francais!" she bellowed.383Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuVDuReyNbH
"Je le veux----je le promets," Mischa managed through halting, pained breaths. Don't look at the guards, and speak French in a French prison.383Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkvkhx1ip3u
These were lessons Mischa wouldn't forget. And if she did, they'd be quick to remind her.383Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡktTum7T2sU
