One morning when I went on duty, I was greeted by my fellow guard — a swarthy, stocky, short-legged, and, to all appearances, spruce manikin, except that the prison-guard vocation had taken up residence in him, squatting there like a hideous reptile — with the information that one of the prisoners in solitary confinement was refusing food. I should note that several cells for solitary confinement were installed even on this purgatory-like floor, on side corridors off the ends of the main aisle, though they were not used, as in the nether regions on higher floors, for prolonged seclusion, let alone punishment; at most, unfortunates would spend the first few days of their detention there until they had got through their first questioning by the examining magistrate and been assigned to a shared cell. There was therefore a speedy turnover in their inmates, so by the time I had registered a face, the next time it would be another looking at me when I opened up or, like it or not, checked through the spyhole. Of all my prison-guard duties, I found that shameful procedure perhaps the most difficult of all to accustom myself to — and if I’m complaining, just imagine what the person whom I was obliged to use it against would say! The very first time — I remember I was still in training for the job on the course — I had to be literally ordered to do it. My heart was in my mouth, I was so frightened of the spectacle that would unfold before me. In the end, it was different from what I had expected; not horrible, but perhaps something even worse: forlorn. Through the hole I could see a celclass="underline" a bunk, a toilet bowl without seat, a wash-basin — oh, and of course the man who had to live there. Later on, I tried to look at this as if it were not me looking but a prison guard, but of course it was not long before I had to resign myself to only being able to look as a prison guard, but in particular a prison guard who, sadly, just happened to be me. In no way could I accustom myself to that damned spyhole, through which it was possible to watch the prisoner in his cell at any time, possibly even the most inappropriate moment. It was explained to me that that was precisely the purpose: to be able to inspect the prisoner, check that he was not sick or harming himself or to catch him red-handed doing something prohibited. It was just that I had no wish catch anyone red-handed, and there was nothing at all that I wanted to inspect which might be repugnant or would displease me — I had no wish to know what a person gets up to behind the door, if he happens to have been locked up in a solitary cell. It was not hard to guess, of course: he is scared and bored, and from certain signs that were eventually distilled, almost involuntarily, as a conclusion within me, I observed, to my astonishment, that even if the prison guard did not enter the cell from time to time, it seemed for some prisoners that this would only fulfil their sense of abandonment. I devised several obvious techniques, such as stamping as I made my way along the corridor, so they could hear that I was coming (which was against the rules: the ape-faced chief warden used to slip felt overshoes onto his boots and approach the coolers like a hyena which had been famished for months; before entering a cell, instead of knocking, I would fumble for a long time with the key on the iron door, as though I was having trouble finding the lock; and although the doors, fitted as they were, with sordid expediency, with a sort of drop-down window hatch, through which the unfortunates were given their food, I always opened the door, so that they would get some air, the noise of rattling dishes, a somewhat cheering glimpse of busy comings-and-goings. As I say, in our prison I counted as one of the better guards.
Well anyway, this prisoner wasn’t eating, says Short-arse. Maybe he’s sick, I tell him. The hell he is: he’s up to no good, says he. Chummy, says I, there’s no need straight off to … Fine, says he, he’s already put in a report, I should make reports about further developments otherwise he would be obliged to report that I am neglecting to make reports. Screw you, I retort in friendly fashion. Just bugger off home, I’m the one on duty now.
We chatted something along those lines, and then I quickly forgot all about it. What did I find, though? He really didn’t want to eat. Neither at noon, nor in the evening.
I waited until lights out, and when the stillness of the night had descended on the prison — a special kind of tranquillity this is, a lit-up, timeless night, the everlastingness of the nether regions, filled with dull, mysterious, muffled hissing and bubbling underwater murmurs, so to say — I open up the solitary cooler rather like an inflamed wound, with a degree of indistinct hope. ‘So, tell me why …,’ I kick off, something like that, not really able to see his long, thin face, as it is covered by a long, wispy beard which ends in a long, wispy, ruffled tip (they’ll soon shear that off when they stick him over in a shared cell, I thought to myself with my supercilious prison-guard gloominess). He tosses out in a flip way something to the effect that his principles demanded it — and I very specifically recall him using the word “principles.”
“What principles are those, then?” I ask with a kind smile, because I had the feeling then that there was no principle on earth that I couldn’t refute. “That I’m innocent,” he snaps, and you see, I don’t even have to refute that, for which of us is not innocent, and anyway: what does it mean?
I said it out loud, or maybe only thought so to myself, I don’t know, but anyway I entered his cell, as it were dropping whatever prison-guard reserve I had. I soon had to realize, though, that my efforts were completely futile: he wouldn’t listen to my arguments, didn’t budge when I ordered him, indeed, did not utter a single word after that. He just kept running that dark, obdurate look of his over my face, like a blindly groping hand. Like someone who doesn’t allow himself to be deluded for one second by deceitful words, he searched about like a cornered animal which was ready to dive under the bunk or scurry away between my legs at the first suspicious sign. I could see he was ready for anything, looking on me as his enemy, or rather not even his enemy: a prison guard, a screw, a person with whom one does not enter a debate. His eyes were burning, with red blotches over his cheekbones; it was the second day that he had not eaten … I talked and talked; in the end I don’t know what annoyed me more: the look which obstinately banished him from the world of being understood and making himself understood, or the situation he had forced on me and which was slowly making a prisoner of me too, locking me in that cell, along with this prisoner, and all of a sudden, before I could escape, time would draw in on us and the night carry us away.
“Do you have the slightest idea what you can expect?” I asked him in the end — and, whatever the rules may say, I had long been addressing him in the familiar form, not out of any contempt, not at all, but driven purely by fraternal irritation, to be precise.
“You’re not eating?” I continue. “It’s just they won’t allow you that luxury here,” I laugh, though not out of any amusement. “You can starve, but only if they starve you. And if you don’t eat, they’ll make you, I can assure you. They’ll take you into the sickbay, push a tube down into your stomach, if possible scratching your gullet in the process — I’ve seen it happen,” I lie, though forgivably, as I had heard about what they did but, of course, had taken good care not to be party to such a spectacle. “And if you vomit it up,” I went on, “they run it in up your backside, or else they strap you down on a bed, stick needles into your veins, and push the nutrients in that way. And don’t go thinking that this somehow just happens, as if you were not there or not taking part in it. Or that you can sail through the whole thing without being tarnished by it. You’d be wrong, very wrong!” I exclaim, and perhaps even I am not aware what sorts of fragmentary memories my own words are reopening within me, or what images are welling up from the depths, as from the cellar of a ruined house when the wind whistles through them. “No one who is tortured,” I yell, “No one can remain untarnished — that’s something I know all too well, and don’t ask me how. Afterwards you won’t be able to speak of innocence any longer, at best of survival. And if you should have a wish to die, that isn’t permitted either. You think they’ll feel any pity for you? They’ll bring you back from death’s door seven times over, don’t worry! Dying can only happen in the permitted manner: with them killing you.”