Victoria Falls

by James Hornor

  “I don’t know anything about your missing daughter, and it’s time for you to leave.”

  “Maybe there is a reason you brought her here, and that reason is not going to go away, even if you make me go away.”

  “What are you, a psychologist?”

  “Nope. I’m just someone who has made his own share of bad decisions. But bad decisions don’t have to result in more bad decisions. That’s my hope for both of us.”

  “The only hope for anyone is dumb luck, and once in a while something crosses your path that you can either take and enjoy or leave for the next guy.”

  “That doesn’t sound very satisfying, does it? Just living your life hoping to find the next thing that comes along.”

  “What is it that you want?”

  “I came looking for my daughter; I just want to find her and take her home.”

  “Right now the only thing is for you to get off of my property.”

  “I’m happy to do that, but maybe you could put the gun down and move your truck out of the way.”

  They both just stood there for almost a minute. Finally the man allowed the barrel of his shotgun to drop, and he glanced back at his truck as if he were about to get back in and move it.

  James stepped off the porch and began to walk slowly in the direction of the trucks. Just as he thought that the confrontation was over, the mechanic did a sudden snap to, as if he were waking up from a dream. He brought the shotgun up to shoulder level and pulled the trigger. The impact to James’s right shoulder knocked him all the way back to the porch, but before he was able to fire the lower chamber, the man’s attention was drawn to the sight of Jenny emerging from around the side of the house. She was standing in the snow fully dressed, and her arms were locked in the position James had taught her with the sights of the Glock leveled at the man’s head.

  Remaining completely motionless, she squeezed the trigger three times and watched as each round tore into his skull. His knees buckled, and his entire body folded like a tent to the ground. She ran over to the porch and saw that her father’s right shoulder had been blown away by the impact of the shotgun. There was blood everywhere, but she managed to slide in under him so that his head was resting in her lap.

  “Papa, don’t try and talk. I’m going to call 911.”

  “Jenny, don’t. They’d never make it out here in time.”

  “You can’t die, Papa. Please don’t die.”

  “You need to help your brother. He’s like I was at that age, still searching around for who he is. Charlie needs to get back to Heather and Ryan.”

  “I’ll help him, Papa.”

  “And Rob will need some help in Vancouver without me there.”

  “I love you, Papa.”

  “We made a good little family, Jenny. The two of us made a good little family.”

  She felt his body go limp, and she saw the life drift out of his eyes. When she was a little girl, he had always tucked her in at night and told her that God’s angels were there protecting her. As she held him there under the Alberta sky, she thought of how he had been the one constant in her life, the one source of steady love that had always gotten her through.

  In his cell in Edmonton, Charlie opened the letter that his father had given him just a few hours earlier.

  Dear Charlie,

  I just want you to know how proud I am to have you as my son. We’ve only known each other for a short while, but already I can see myself in you—or at least the way I was at your age.

  Pretty soon you’ll see that the most important thing is to take really good care of those around you—Heather and Ryan to be sure, but also anyone you meet—even if it is only for five minutes. Look for opportunities to be kind, and you will come to find that your heart will be full of a joy that will sustain you, no matter the circumstances.

  I know that it is really difficult being in prison and separated from your family, but find people there who you can support and care for. That will make your days in prison go much more quickly!

  We all love you, and look forward to the day when we come to bring you home.

  Love, Dad

  Charlie read the letter three times and fell asleep. He couldn’t help but feel that his father was there with him in prison, and he had the distinct feeling that all would be well.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  BETWEEN SEPTEMBER AND DECEMBER, I TOOK ADDITIONAL “baby steps,” attempting to put the needs of fellow prisoners above my own. I knew that by that point, my job at the Bank was long gone, and that Melissa had probably forgotten about me in favor of Gerard Hugel or perhaps David Fortran. I still hoped to run into Jonathan at Arthur Road, but with thousands of incarcerated prisoners, it seemed unlikely—especially since I had no idea what he looked like.

  I had my state-appointed attorney contact both Jenny and Catherine. I was hoping that Catherine could somehow find some funding for Jenny’s tuition, and I wanted Jenny to know that I was in prison in Bombay. I knew that she would forgive me for whatever problems I had caused her at NYU, and I didn’t want her to worry about me, although I knew she would be distraught to hear the news.

  Despite my newly discovered ability to help and care for other people, I still experienced moments of complete despair. My attorney seemed confused about my motivation to bribe a judge, and he was candid about the devastating evidence of the tape recording if my case ever came to trial. In short, I couldn’t imagine any scenario that might bring about my release from Arthur Road, and in that despair I began to talk to God.

  Instead of asking for a litany of things I wanted God to do for me, I asked him to help me understand that despite my incarceration, I was still a human being with the capacity to love. I wanted to know how a fuller appreciation of my humanity might result in renewed purpose and clarity for my life.

  At the small Christmas service that was held in the same holding tank I had stayed in on my arrival, I finally surrendered all of my life to God and Christ. Each of us were given a small candle at the end of that service, and in the weeks and months that followed, I held that candle in my right hand whenever I prayed.

  I received one card for Christmas that year, and it was from Jenny. The address on the outside simply said:

  JAMES MONROE

  ARTHUR ROAD JAIL

  BOMBAY, INDIA

  It was loaded with international stamps, and it had a smiley face across the flap on the other side. On the front of the card were angels coming down from heaven announcing the birth of Jesus, and she had signed it, “Always your loving daughter, Jenny.”

  The message on the other side of the card was something I will always treasure.

  “Dear Papa,

  Wanted you to know that I got mostly A’s this term at NYU! Sorry to hear about prison. I have your picture next to my bed, and I look at it every day. It reminds me of what a good person you are. I also know that you didn’t hurt anyone. My hope is that we will all be back together soon. Don’t worry about the tuition. Mom and I got it all worked out. I will love you forever!

  Love, Jenny.”

  It was the card that kept me going into the New Year, and it was my hope for reunion with Jenny that made each day at Arthur Road something I could bear.

  Around the middle of January I noticed that Ramesh had stopped eating and a few evenings later he was slumped over against the wall. I managed to work my way next to him and I allowed his head to rest on my shoulder. He had congestion and a deep cough that suggested pneumonia or something equally virulent. He had a temperature and his tongue was swollen in his mouth, making it almost impossible for him to talk. Without money for the wardens, medical care was only a remote possibility, so when I requested aspirin from one of them, I was fully expecting a shrug and a nod of the head, which meant “no.” Instead he reappeared about thirty minutes later with a full bottle of baby aspirin, and I carefully fed five or six of them to Ramesh. As a result he slept through the night, and the same warden allowed both of us to miss work detail so t
hat Ramesh could continue to recover. There are small pockets of compassion in prison, and they often surface just at the point of unrelenting despair. It took Ramesh almost ten days to recover, and the evenings I spent comforting him continue to be the touchstone I return to when I question my ability to put others’ needs above my own.

  Other inmates were not as fortunate as Ramesh, and every morning two or three deceased inmates were removed from the barracks on stretchers as the pestilence gained momentum. The wardens wanted to avoid touching anything related to death, and they wore surgical masks everywhere except for their own quarters. Healthy inmates were employed to dispose of clothing and bedding, and one morning I was sent to the laundry with a canvas bag full of infected blankets.

  The prison laundry is in the basement, and to get there I had to pass by the room where I was tortured several months before. I now considered that room a sacred space—a place where all hope was lost, and in the complete absence of light, a newness emerged like a nascent star.

  Two wardens stopped me along the way to ask where I was going. As soon as they saw the blankets, they turned the other way and let me pass. When I arrived at the laundry window, the inmate in charge had his back to me. He was preoccupied with rearranging a rack of wardens’ uniforms.

  “How can I help you mate?”

  It was the first Australian accent I had heard since arriving at Arthur Road.

  “These are contaminated blankets. The warden sent me down to get them laundered.”

  “It’s a nasty infection going around. You ought to wash your hands. How about a sink?”

  At that, the young Aussie opened the half door and invited me into the laundry. Huge machines lined both walls, and I wondered why all the equipment was needed for a prison that never washed any of the inmates’ clothing or bedding.

  “How long you been in the Road?”

  “About eight months, and you?”

  “Going on three and a half years.”

  “You wouldn’t know a fellow Aussie by the name of Jonathan Samuel?”

  He looked at me as if I had just told him that he was being released. Instead of surprise, he gazed at me with an intense interest.

  “I am Jonathan Samuel.”

  I had given up on the idea of ever meeting Jonathan, and for a moment I too was speechless.

  “I know your sister. You are the reason I came to Bombay!”

  Jonathan looked around as if I had just revealed an escape plan, and he immediately lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “How in bloody hell did you end up in here?”

  As he spoke we moved toward the back of the laundry. Normally a patrol of wardens would be checking the laundry on a regular basis, but because of the spreading pestilence it was perceived as a place of even more deadly infection. And normally I would have been missed if I hadn’t returned to the barracks, but the wardens were spending limited contact time with the prisoners in hopes of increasing their own chances for survival. I knew that in these circumstances, I could create an alibi for my absence.

  As I told him about my relationship with Melissa and the failed plan to bribe the judge, he looked at me knowingly, almost as if he had heard it all before. There were several times when he started to interrupt me and then paused, wanting me to complete my story, which was now sounding somewhat similar to his own. As he began his own story of arriving in Bombay and his arrest for smuggling drugs, I noticed that there was an insistence about him that reminded me of Melissa. Physically, he had the same high cheekbones and prominent forehead. Prison eventually diminishes an inmate’s physical vitality, but in Jonathan’s case, flickers of his former self were still intact.

  “Melissa was in love with the French ambassador to Australia. Before he met her, he had an affair with another employee of the embassy. Her irate ex-husband was threatening to go to The Sydney Morning Herald with the story, and he wanted $100,000 US to keep quiet. Melissa knew that some of my mates had scored five times that in drug runs into Bombay. They had been running drugs for years, and they never got caught. She didn’t make me do the run, but she knew that she would lose the ambassador if the story ever went to press. I wanted to do it for her.

  Twelve hours before I left for Bombay, my connection here was arrested. In a plea deal, he revealed the drop off points and the timetable. Like you, I walked into a trap, and two days later, I was incarcerated at Arthur Road. When they allowed me to call Melbourne fourteen months ago, Melissa wasn’t there, but I told my mother to tell Melissa that the only possible way out is to bribe a judge. I guess that’s where you came in.”

  This immediately confirmed my latent suspicion that I had been Melissa’s “mark” since the day we first met at Victoria Falls. Perhaps for her, our relationship had been a slow build until she sensed that the opportunity was there to ask me to go to Bombay. For all I knew, she had invented the plan sitting in my room at The Victoria Falls Hotel, and all of the flirtation and innuendo were a way to bring me along. I attempted to process all of this as I sat across from Jonathan, and he must have noticed my distraction as well as my chagrin.

  “As you undoubtedly know, Melissa is somewhat of an enigma. When we were younger, she always stood up for me as her younger brother. She was the person I could go to when my life was in turmoil. Our father left when I was four and she was seven. A part of me believes that her entire life has been spent searching for his replacement. She has always dated older men, and her fear of separation means that she has a hard time committing to anyone. Most men regard her as aloof and unattainable, but she has a sweet and vulnerable side that she only reveals when she begins to let down her guard.”

  The animosity and suspicion that I had assumed about her only a moment ago now turned to understanding or even sympathy. Of course I had been the father figure in our relationship. I was the one who had made all the arrangements for travel and accommodation. I had waited like a patient parent as she tried on dresses; I had even interceded on her behalf with Gerard Hugel. Her comment about ending it if it didn’t “feel right” were her caution lights coming on. Would I walk out of her life like her father did? Maybe her cautionary statement was a preemptive strike in case I did decide to leave.

  But it wasn’t just her fear of separation that haunted her. It was her awareness that she had a spirituality about her that had undoubtedly been present since childhood. It gave her an intensity that was both charismatic and charming, much like an ancient goddess who could transform herself at will into a beautiful swan. I had voluntarily become captive, even obeisant to her charm, but there was a capriciousness about it that later became off-putting and, in retrospect, a little foolish. For Melissa, it was an elusive echo of her innermost being that was eternally fascinating and yet morally inconsequential. Part of its attraction for me was the elusiveness of what it promised to be: the answer to my longing for sacred meaning and purpose outside of myself. What I had learned in prison is that the path to that meaning and purpose is not one of endless fascination, but rather one of unconditional love for those around us.

  Our conversation had only lasted ten minutes when a warden came to the window wanting to pick up his laundry. I hid behind a dryer, and as soon as Jonathan returned, I embraced him as a comrade. We were both essentially in the same boat. Melissa was our common hope of somehow getting out of Arthur Road. We both loved her in our own ways, but her capricious nature did not bode well for a plan of escape. While I embraced him, I silently forgave her for our plight. She may have conveniently forgotten about both of us, but to live on that assumption would only embitter what would undoubtedly be an extended travail of incarceration.

  The next month was the most difficult month I spent at Arthur Road. The wardens refused to separate the men who became ill, and as a result, the large room where we were housed was infested with disease. Coughing became an incessant cacophony, and as more inmates passed away, there was a fear of infection that caused the healthy inmates to claim certain spaces as safety zones. Sick inmate
s were relegated to the end of the room closest to the latrine, and even the wardens kept their distance. The several times that I ventured into the area of sickness to try and offer a blanket or fresh water, Ramesh pulled me back, pleading with me to stay away. It became a test of my newly acquired faith. In the end, when the illness began to subside, I felt guilty that I had not done enough for those who had suffered and died.

  Around noon on a Tuesday in late February, I was called into the superintendent’s office and told that I should come back the next morning to meet with someone called Mr. Alexis. I suspected that Mr. Alexis was probably the new state-appointed attorney, since my attorney had indicated at our last meeting that he was being taken off the case. One of the wardens came for me around 10:00 A.M. the next morning and told me to bring all of my things. I only had a plastic bag of personal items, but I brought it with me, thinking that maybe I was being moved to one of the other barracks.

  When I walked into the superintendent’s office, there was an American sitting there in a three-piece suit. The superintendent introduced him to me as Daniel Alexis.

  “Are you James Monroe?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m here representing a third party who has secured your release.”

  At first I couldn’t speak. I thought maybe it was part of some cruel joke that the prison played on inmates who were getting too comfortable.

  “Mr. Alexis has also procured an expedited release, so you’ll be leaving Arthur Road before the end of the day.”

  My mind was racing. Who could have procured my release? Earlier in my life I might have grabbed my things and made a quick exit, but I wanted to at least attempt to procure a release for Ramesh and Jonathan. I knew that at least Ramesh would do the same for me.

  “I’d like to request that two other inmates—Ramesh Jariwala and Jonathan Samuel—be released as well.”

  This was a request that neither Mr. Alexis nor the superintendent were expecting, and they looked at one another, somewhat bewildered. I was taken back to my barracks and I didn’t hear anything until a little after 3:00 P.M. I was suspecting that my request had also jeopardized my own release, so I was relieved when I again saw Mr. Alexis sitting in the office.