MISCHA WOKE UP vomiting on a stained concrete floor. Her jaw ached so badly she thought it must be broken. Her face felt puffy. She was so dizzy that she couldn't maintain her balance.339Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq8Fgvb2uPC
She surveyed her surroundings. The room was about six, maybe seven square meters. A high ceiling from which a lone lightbulb hung. Walls covered with mildew and laden with graffiti. Stains all along the floor.
This was segregation. Solitary confinement, as it's called in the U.S.A. In France it was called Le Mitard.
Mischa crawled over to the faucet, which jutted out from the wall like an outdoor spigot, and turned it on. The pressure was weak, the water lukewarm. She held a hand under it and splashed it on his face. Drank a little. It was potable, but bitter with the taste of iron. She spat blood into the drain on the floor.
The intercom, up high on the wall, crackled. "Mettez votre dos la porte et les mains par l'overture," the voice said.
Mischa forced herself up to her feet. Her knees were dirty, bloody and stiff. The front of her shirt was covered in blood and vomit. She was woozy but she managed to comply with the guard's directive. She stood against the door and placed her hands behind her, through the opening. A pair of handcuffs slid over her wrists.
"Reculez-vous de la porte."
She complied again, standing back from the door, her hands cuffed behind her. A guard entered and grabbed her from behind by her handcuffs, directing her out of the cell.
"What happened to Felice?" asked Mischa. "Qu'est il arrive a' Linettte?"
The guard didn't answer. She just marched Mischa back to her cell. Her head was ringing and her nausea was replaced by a sense of dread.
The guard opened her cell door. Inside, the place was a disaster area from the guards' ruthless search for contraband. Four of Mischa's cellmates sat quietly, as though in shock.
Rosalie, the leader. Adelaida, the Spaniard, Janine, the cokehead. Beatrice, the deranged firebug.
Lise, of course, was dead from the failed escape attempt.
That left Felice as the only one unaccounted for!
"Ou est Felice?" asked Mischa.
Rosalie was the only one who would make eye contact with Mischa. Her expression was as hard as ever, but her eyes were brimming with tears.
She shook her head slowly.
It took a moment before it registered, before Mischa absorbed it. "No!!" she cried. Mischa collapsed to the floor. "No!" She pounded on the concrete and just screamed, guttural cries, her throat filled with anguish and venom. Another nausea wave surged through her and she retched several times, dry-heaving bile, the contents of her stomach having long been expelled.
"Not Felice," she pleaded in vain. Not when she was only months away from release, when she was going to marry the love of her life, Donatello.
After a while, Mischa was merely panting like a rabid animal.
"Ils l'ont tuee," Mischa said. They killed her.
Rosalie looked up at the ceiling. "C'etait in accident," she called. "Elle est tombee et a frappe sa tete."
"What?" Mischa raised her head. "She didn't slip and hit her head. This wasn't some accident! Josette killed her! Josette killed her!" she repeated.
"Non," Rosalie's voice trembled. "Un accident."
Mischa stared at Rosalie, then at the others. They were all nodding along with Rosalie. She realized she'd been mistaken. Her cellmates weren't in shock. They were terrified! Scared to death. Even Rosalie, the hardest of the bunch, was singing the company line: Felice had fallen and struck her head. Nobody was willing to say that Josette had beaten their friend to death.
Because if they did, the next "accident" would be theirs!
"We can't let them get them away with this!" Mischa said, getting, to her feet. She repeated herself, this time in French, but she could see it didn't matter which language she spoke.
"Nous n'avois pas in choix," Adeliada said.
"Of course we have a choice," Mischa pleaded. "Hell yes, we have a choice!"
But she was arguing in vain. There was nothing she could say that would talk them out of their fear.
Felice, Mischa's dear friend---their dear friend, everybody's friend in JRF----was dead, murdered by Josette, and they were going to turn their backs and pretend the whole thing was a slip-and-fall.
"Fuckin' killers!" Mischa banged on the buzzer for the intercom, screaming into it. Rosalie and Adelaida rushed from their beds and grabbed her, restraining her. She fought them off initially and kept whacking away at the intercom, which never answered her. Finally they tackled her to the ground, where she lay sobbing and hyperventilating until the lights went out at 8:00 P.M.339Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUDHjnx2VY1
