By: Daniela Rodriguez
Loyalty and Family
“Guilty,” said the head juror.
Radmilla sat with her back against the wall, knees up to her chest, crying. The lights in the Russian prison were shut off, lights out for the night; she knew she would not sleep but simply wait for the sun to rise on her new life, a caged life.
A couple of hours later, she watched as the first rays of sunlight peeked through the bars on her small window, she stretched her legs, got up, and walked over to the small opening on the wall. Outside she saw guards coming to replace the overnight shift, while others brought out the construction equipment the inmates would use throughout the day. Once the sun was completely overhead, she heard the siren that indicated the official start of the day.
Day 1
Breakfast was the first thing in order, the women were lined up, hands behind their backs at all times as they were herded into the mess hall. They grabbed their trays as they walked by the counter and proceeded to shuffle down the food isle, once they reached the end of the counter they were free to sit anywhere they pleased. Radmilla reached the end of the counter and looked around surveying the room, with what she saw she was able to determine that in here every table is its own continent and claimed territory. She looked around one more time, the guard at the end of the line was ushering her to sit, finally she decided on an empty table closest to the back wall near the entrance. As she sat down, out of the corner of her eye she tried to see if anyone was looking at her, but no one turned around, no one seemed to care, or so she thought.
“That’s your first one,” she heard someone say behind her.
She turned around and saw a blonde, scrawny inmate leaning up against the wall. She didn’t have any tattoos, at least none that were visible, she was attractive in her own way, blonde hair loose over her shoulders, bright blue eyes, but she seemed sick somehow. Radmilla had the weird sensation that she knew her.
“My first what?” she asked.
“Strike. You get three of those and…well just make sure you don’t get to three,” she said.
“What’d I do?”
“Neutrality. You didn’t chose a table, and in this place loyalty and family are the key to survival. Case and point,” she said pointing towards the left of the room.
A fight had somehow started between two tables, food and trays were being thrown, but Radmilla had no idea why.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I told you, loyalty and the people you choose to stand by are important in this place,” with that she turned around and walked out of the mess hall.
As the guards tried to control the situation, Radmilla thought to herself, ‘tomorrow I pick a table’.
Day 4
Three days had passed since Radmilla first encountered life in prison, on her second day as she neared the end of the food isle during breakfast she spotted the blonde from the day before, she smiled at her and Radmilla took that as a sign of welcome. She sat down next to her and found out her name was Pascal, she had been imprisoned for crimes against the government, she had participated in several anti-communist rallies and specifically one in which a government official had been killed, she witnessed the whole thing and had refused to give up information. Pascal introduced Radmilla to the rest of the girls sitting at the table, there were two sisters charged with indecent exposure, a college professor that had refused to teach her students to hate America, and an older woman who was rumored to have been in jail since before the Bolshevik revolution.
Today was the first time the women were going to be allowed to go outside to the construction site, because a fight broke out days earlier the women had been put on lockdown for a couple of days. This would be the first time Radmilla would be on the construction site.
“So what exactly are we building?” Radmilla asked.
“The new security headquarters for the prison. I heard one of the guards say that once this thing was finished, this place would be impossible to get out of,” Pascal answered. The women were walking over to the tool shed, they were both handed a shovel.
“What, isn’t already?” Radmilla asked jokingly.
Pascal leaned over to her and in a hushed voice said, “actually there’ve been several breakouts in the last year, two were caught just outside the walls but three women made it out, they’re still looking for them.”
“Really? That’s interesting,” Radmilla said, and with that the conversation was over, shoveling dirt and stone took effort.
Half way through the day’s work the women were given a break, some used the restrooms, others refilled their water bottles, but Radmilla noticed that Pascal went straight over to the on-site medic, who opened a bottle of pills and handed two to her, she swallowed them with a bit of water and headed back over to Radmilla.
“What were those for?” she asked Pascal.
“Life support,” she answered and then half smiled.
“What’s wrong?”
“Cancer. I was diagnosed like two days after I entered this hell hole.”
“And all they give you are pills? Shouldn’t you be going through treatment or something. What is that thing called, chemotherapy?”
“Anti-communists don’t get those privileges. We’re more useful to the government dead.”
Radmilla could not help but think why Pascal did not just simply give up the name of the person who had killed that official. What could possibly be more important than her own life?
Day 12
The last two weeks had been a monotonous series of repeated activity: wake up, eat, work, eat, work, shower, eat, sleep. The only thing that seemed to be changing was Pascal’s health, she had begun to look paler, her blonde hair had lost its brightness, and she had lost considerable weight, some due to the mandatory construction work, mostly due to her cancer, it was spreading.
“Why don’t you just tell them who did it?” Radmilla asked as they headed to the mess hall for lunch. “I mean, you’re dying in here, just tell them!”
“I can’t. Loyalty and family remember,” Pascal said. She took her lunch tray and walked over to their table.
“How can you be loyal to someone who leaves you in here to die? How is their loyalty towards you being reflected?”
“It’s not that simple Radmilla.”
“Nothing is ever simple Pascal, I just think you should value your life a little more.”
“I do.”
“That’s not true! You’re killing yourself, literally, to defend someone who probably forgot about you!”
“It was my brother.”
“What?”
“My brother killed that pig, he ordered our home to be burned, my parents were still inside,” she said, her eyes glistened with tears held back. “You see why I can’t say what I know,” with that she got up, took her tray, and walked away.
Day 15
Radmilla continued to believe that Pascal should turn her brother in, her condition was getting worse by the day, she had tried several times to bring up the subject again but Pascal had always found ways of side stepping it. Radmilla however, was determined, she was going to help Pascal, she was going to get her out one way or another, perhaps because she needed to make amends with her own personal demons.
“Where’s Pascal?” Radmilla asked, no one at the table seemed to know.
“She’s in the infirmary. She wouldn’t wake up this morning,” the older women said without looking up.
Radmilla ran toward one of the guards and asked to see Pascal, he radioed the infirmary and granted her permission. Pascal was in the bed closest to the far wall, Radmilla walked over to her.
“Hey, what’re you doing here?” Pascal asked.
“Just visiting, wanted to make sure you were ok.”
“Oh I’m fine. They gave me some medication for the pain, I’m feeling a lot better now.”
In that moment the an alarm went off in the whole prison, a huge fight had broken out in the construction site, every guard was being called over to the site of the chaos, even the doctor left to see what was happening.
“Can you walk?” Radmilla asked. This was her chance, the infirmary had an emergency exit that lead to the outside, this area was not heavily guarded, inmates were not allowed outside unless it was in the recreational areas.
“Yeah, of course,” Pascal answered.
“Good, ‘cause we’re getting you out of here,” she said. With that she handed Pascal her shoes and went over to barricade the entrance with the doctor’s desk.
“You ready?” she asked.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
When they opened the emergency exit, the fire alarm went off. They looked around and saw that the guards in the towers were distracted by what was happening on the other side where the fight had broken out. They walked along the wall, trying not to draw attention to themselves, until they reached the chain linked fence keeping them inside.
“Why were you put in here Radmilla?” Pascal asked. The question had been burning in her head for weeks, she needed to know. They began to climb the fence, Radmilla just behind Pascal, as they reached the top Radmilla grabbed Pascal’s hand and lowered her as quickly as she could onto the other side, she jumped in the opposite direction, landing inside the prison again.
“What’re you doing?!” Pascal asked, she didn’t understand they could have made it out together.
“I’m not like you Pascal, I did commit a crime, I need to be in here, I need to pay for what I did. Now go! Go!” she said as tears filled her eyes. Pascal retreated to the woods and yelled over her shoulder thank you. As Radmilla watched her leave she thought of the reason why she had landed in prison in the first place, her sister’s death. Victoria was a thin girl, she was beautiful, with long blonde hair and bright blue eyes, just twelve years old when she decided to get in the passenger seat of her drunk sister’s car.