AS THE CELL door opened, the odor that wafted to her nostrils, even over that of stale cigarette smoke, was mold and decay. 317Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYCGt7BpkO1
The cell itself was approximately the size of Mischa's bedroom in her townhouse in Salzburg. There were metal bunk beds to the left and right. A table protruding from the wall, a shelf above that, holding some cans of food and a loaf of bread and some books. A small freestanding closet in one corner, a dingy toilet and basin in the other.
There were six women in that cell. Two on the top bunk, left side, their legs dangling over the edge. Two on the bottom bunk, opposite side. One sitting on a stool. The sixth was sitting on a toilet.
Six plus Mischa, last she checked, equaled seven. She looked again at the sleeping arrangements. Four beds, seven women. She wasn't a math major, but she had trouble finding an equation in which this arrangement turned out well for her.
The mild chatter she heard outside the door had cut off when she entered. Six pairs of eyes appraised Mischa silently as the guard led her inside by the arm and closed the door behind her. All the prisoners were white . Five thin----not fashionably thin but malnourished---and one heavy. Five dark-haired and one blond.
The deadbolt latched closed again. Mischa considered a smile but it didn't make any sense. She made a point of looking around for a place to unload her bed linens and blanket and toiletries. She moved toward the bottom bunk, left side.
One of the women on top, who had a butch haircut, dark eyes, and chiseled arms peeking out of a shirt whose sleeves had been cut off, clucked her tongue and shook her head.
"Ou?" Mischa asked.
Nobody wanted to tell her where she could throw her stuff. It seemed like everybody else in the room was following the lead of the butch haircut.
"L'Americaine," said one of them on the bottom. "Elle est cell qui riait."
The one who laughed. She was referring to the photo they had snapped of her after the verdict, which had appeared on the front page of Le Monde the following day. Under the headline POUPEES CASSEES---Broken Dolls----were a photo of Lindsay and Nicole Richie hugging their boyfriends and one of Mischa, seated in the defense cage, her head reared back as she burst into laughter. A still photograph, void of context----the ice queen who gunned down their beloved leader and thought the whole thing was hilarious.
"Papier." The woman on the toilet, her pants at her ankles, was curling her fingers at Mischa. "Paper? Papier toilette!"
"Oh!" She wanted toilet paper. Mischa had a role in her toiletries bag. She managed to get it out while balancing the linens and tossed it to her.
One of the women sitting on the bottom right bunk bed, with sickly pale skin and sunken eyes, popped up and approached her. Mischa steeled herself but couldn't think fast enough, reaching for her toiletries and producing the toothpaste. The prisoner held it up and said something in French Mischa couldn't catch and returned to her bed, celebrating.
Mischa wasn't going to sit there all day with all that stuff in her arms, so she placed it carefully in the corner. The floor was concrete. It was scuffed, dirty and cracked. The same could be said of the walls, thick with mildew and badly splintered at the intersection with the floor. T-shirts and pieces of paper were stuffed in the crevices.
"We knew----we knew we were getting one of you," said the woman next to the butch haircut, the blonde one of the bunch. English!!!! At least one of them could communicate with Mischa. Butch didn't seem happy that the blonde was speaking to her, apparently without consent, but the blonde returned the elbow when Butch threw her one.
"You are the one----who laughed," she said. "We were----hope----hoping?----for you."
"Why?" Mischa asked.
"You are..." She leveled her hand horizontally in the air. "More short?"
"Shorter than the others." Easier to fit into this thimble of a room.
"Vous allez pouvoir dormer sur le plancher," said the leader, the butch haircut.
She was telling Mischa she would be using the floor for her bed. The concrete floor was decorated with numerous stains. While she pondered the origin of these stains, a gigantic gray rat with a long black tail, which looked more like a small dog than a rodent, scurried out from under one of the bunk beds and into one of the crevices at the base of the wall. Mischa jumped back, evoking laughter from her cellmates.
Even the sympathetic blond woman couldn't restrain her amusement.
"That's Napoleon," she said.
Great, thought Mischa. The rat had a name.
"Elle s'habitue a eux," said the thickset woman.317Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2a3ui5WMyL
She was telling Mischa that she'd eventually get used to the rats. That was probably right. And that was probably the worst part of all.317Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQE7QGHuRzR
This would now be normal. This was not the only life Mischa Barton, once star of The O.C. would ever know.317Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1DVYIzrJmw
